Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming back the inaugural Poet Laureate of Eureka, California, David Holper. David won the poetry contest in the previous issue, “Broken.” “Space” includes two of his poems. “Crush” recalls a young man distracted by a beautiful classmate in college French class and relates the moment he followed her into the elevator to ask her out. Enjambment accentuates the awkwardness of his misguided affection, drawn inexorably forward. We sense the impending rejection immediately. “The doors opened only after all the oxygen was gone. …I pressed/ the down button back to hell, where I would rent a room/ for many seasons still, carving my initials into the walls.” The second poem, “All That You Will Never Know” takes a wistful inventory of mysteries, knowledge and skills that the individual will never comprehend. There is simply too much to know and too little time, and “…nothing explains why the world/ is so terribly beautiful—and everyone/ you love must die.”
Experience David’s appealing poetry in Synkroniciti’s November 30th issue, “Space,” Vol. 5, No. 4, available for purchase here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
David Holper has published two collections of poetry, The Bridge (Sequoia Song Publications) and 64 Questions (March Street Press). His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies, including Pilgrimage, Ruminate, Third Wednesday, First Things, Painted Bride Quarterly, and The Rambler. He has won the Barbara Curiel Award and the Jodi Stutz Prize in Toyon, the Noctua Review poetry contest, and the Rotting Post humor competition. He has published about a dozen pieces of fiction in various quarterlies, including Grand Street, the New Virginia Review, and Callaloo.
David is an emeritus professor in English at College of the Redwoods and lives in Eureka, California, where he served as the inaugural Poet Laureate. He thinks Eureka is far enough from the madness of civilization that he can still see the stars at night and hear the Canada geese calling.