Synkroniciti is excited to welcome poet Laura Peña of Houston, Texas, with “Amass Grief.” In this tender and heart-wrenching poem, Laura shares how her father’s death, which happened as her mother talked on the phone nearby, affected her mother. Depression became visualized as clutter–books in the bed, clothes on top of clothes.
“A pattern began to erase the pain/ left by his sudden departure. More piles/ appeared in the bedroom, bathroom, closets.// Whole rooms buried,/ every inch of space occupied,/ the living areas crushed by objects.”
Laura’s vulnerability paints a relatable picture–many of us have watched grief manifest in similar fashion in our lives or in the lives of those we love and struggle to express our experience. It’s so easy for such things to become taboo out of a well-meaning sense of respect and sheer overwhelm, but healing comes from being able to share them. She does this beautifully, her clarity tempered by gentle compassion. Powerful, emotive imagery is related through subtle alliterative music rich with the interplay of sibilants and plosives.
Read “Amass Grief” in Synkroniciti’s “Patterns” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Laura Peña is an award-winning poet born and raised in Houston, TX. She holds a BA in English Literature and an MA in Education. She is a primary bilingual teacher as well as a translator of poetry into Spanish. Laura has been a featured poet at Valley International Poetry Festival, Inprint First Fridays, and Public Poetry. She has been published both in print and online journals. She has been a workshop presenter at VIPF in the Rio Grande Valley, TX, and People’s Literary Festival in Corpus Christi, TX.
One of Laura’s annual traditions is to write a poem a day for August Postcard Poetry Festival and she has participated in the fest for the last 13 years. Laura has performed poetry for Invisible Lines Productions at Notsuoh, Interchange, Avante Garden, and The Match. Laura translated Margo Stutts Toombs’ poem “How to Tend a Wall” into Spanish and the accompanying short film is premiering at Fotogenia Festival 2025 in Mexico City.