Synkroniciti is honored to award the prize for our “home” poetry contest to Charles Elliott’s striking “L.A. Neighbors.” In modern city life, how often do we make assumptions and draw conclusions about our neighbors? We are so close to one another and yet so alone. When we do cry out, those around us have no context to understand or respond to our cries. Elliott gives us an edgy and unflinching look into our own isolation and mortality.
One of those much-maligned Old White Men, Charles Elliott began as an impoverished Irish-American/German-American kid in a Brooklyn slum. This past year he hid from Covid-19 at home in Southern California, tended his Monarch butterfly garden, read poets he admires, pondered how racism diminishes even his life, and flirted aslant with the Muse – often at 3:33 a.m. – to create the unpublished manuscript, “Dangerous Ideas.” His poetry – featured in Levure littéraire, Chiron Review, Aethlon, Potomac Review, the New York Times, and two anthologies – is pending in The American Journal of Poetry. Elliott administers https://www.facebook.com/The.Poetry.Cabin and a Twitter account, @ThePoetryCabin. He reads his work at https://www.youtube.com/user/beautyseer. Elliott also wrote three Southern California history books and won journalism and fine art photography awards.
The issue drops June 1st. You can subscribe or buy the issue here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/. We will be publishing four poems by Charles Elliott.