Synkroniciti is delighted to welcome back poet, photographer and polymath Rachael Ikins, who won our “Belonging” cover contest in 2024, with a transcendent poem and fascinating photographic set. “Becoming” was one of our outstanding poetry finalists. Dedicated to poet Andrea Gibson, who died last year, known for her phenomenal poetry, activism and the power of her performance, it’s an achingly beautiful lamentation for the Earth.
“How can I grieve devastation/ for a place so filled with magic/ and wonder/ that was also a place/ of such cruelty.”
Nature is depicted with vivid imagery that draws upon all of our senses, rich in color and texture. We taste the ripe strawberries, feel the mud gush between our toes, and thrill to the trilling song of cicadas. Life is built on impermanence, the one constant being mutability. No matter how modern and civilized we think we are, this sensual wildness welcomes us home. We are nothing without nature.
Falling Stars is an intriguing photographic triptych featuring blossoms of Stapelia gigantea, known as Carrion Flower or Starfish Plant. They are star shaped, their hairy petals heavily patterned, the center of the flower resembling a black hole. In person, this majestic beauty is overshadowed by the odor of rotting meat they exude to attract pollinators. Rachael gives us different angles that show the physical nature of the flower and imbue it with an alien, science-fiction character.
Experience Rachael’s vision and artistry in Synkroniciti’s “Patterns” issue, Vol. 7, No. 4, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Rachael Ikins followed her pen into the forest as a child. As with Gretel in the Grimm Brothers’ tale, a wicked witch forced her to reroute through valleys so dark she doubted the existence of the sun at times. She lost everything before she finally understood her truth: write like a motherfucker, write or die. For poetry was the constant through all storms, the one beloved she refused to relinquish.
She won some prizes, published in journals and then books. This summer’s end she built a new knee of titanium and cobalt and evolved. Bionic poet. Author of her first novella which released at the same time, a thriller titled Haven (Raw Earth Ink.) Her meal time companion is a 48-year-old Thanksgiving cactus whose froth of hot pink rockets flies toward her so closely that she can hear them sing.