Guidelines



Submission Guidelines: Send unpublished poems in the body of an email (NO ATTACHMENTS) to nvneditor[at]gmail.com. No simultaneous submissions. Use "Verse News Submission" as the subject line. Send a brief bio. No payment. Authors retain all rights after 1st-time appearance here. Scroll down the right sidebar for the fine print.

Wednesday, June 01, 2016

OPERATION SOPHIA

by Jill Crainshaw




through soul-searing saharan sands
into a mythical sea of many names
she brought forth her eighth-born child and
named her
sophia
wisdom
“migrant”
NOUN: an animal that migrates
ADJECTIVE: tending to migrate, “migrant birds”
“migrant boat sinks” migrant people
fleeing seeking flight
“I was ready to die with my unborn child”
roving
nomadic
wandering
traveling
drifting
through intense shivering waves of
fear-refracted deeps
dictionaried definitions designate
describe
determine the “nature, scope or meaning of”
headlines desperate “dozens feared
drowned” in jonah’s great sea
politico-poetic
burial ground
birthing waters of
wisdom


Jill Crainshaw is a professor at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. Her poems have appeared in *82 Review and Five Magazine and in an anthology by Wicwas Press. She is also the author of a number of books on worship and theology.