Synkroniciti is pleased to welcome back writer and poet Pan Piper from Scotland with two poems about the struggle for personal autonomy and self-acceptance. “beginning to belong” celebrates the sense of meaning that comes from an individuated life, a joy inaccessible in youth: “But (like a split, ripe tomato)/ I’m grinning — crowing —/ knowing that this life with you,/ dear self (wolf-cub or wildebeest)/ is just beginning.” Pan’s playful assonance and rhyme, deployed with such skill, are testament to this wonder-filled joy, which paradoxically, comes at a time when society is ready to abandon us. “leaving the Father” explores the discomfort of outgrowing a relationship: “my carefully crafted letters are wasted upon you/ like a frightened hare nibbling around the edges of truth/ saving the unpalatable for later, always/ afraid to kill you/ by my boxing-with-words.” How do we attempt to live without wounding each other and yet define our personal boundaries and space in a way that allows for growth? Pan’s imagery and alliterative music delights even as it encapsulates pain.
Read Pan’s deft and illuminating poetry in Synkroniciti’s “Identity” issue, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/
In Scotland, Pan Piper (she/their/them) finds vision beyond Caithness, on the edge of Orcadia. Their pilgrim path leads along sandstone cliffs frequented by Raven, where the dwarf willow attracts the Bumblebee, a symbol of neuro-divergency.
A creative friend to both Sara Collie and Kathy Labrum McVittie, whose works have also appeared in Synkroniciti, she mines memory for myths of the Third Millennium. And stays silent about the Second.