Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic

Featuring Risa Denenberg

Hosted by Christopher Luna and Toni Partington of Printed Matter Vancouver

7 pm

Thursday, July 12

Open mic sign up begins at 6:30 and closes at 7 sharp

Angst Gallery

1015 Main Street

Vancouver, WA 98660

Risa Denenberg lives on the Olympic peninsula in Washington state where she works as a nurse practitioner. She reviews poetry for the American Journal of Nursing and is a co-founder and editor at Headmistress Press, publisher of LBT poetry. She has published three chapbooks and three full length collections of poetry, including Whirlwind @ Lesbos (Headmistress Press, 2016) and  slight faith (MoonPath Press, 2018).

 

Abiding Winter 

by Risa Denenberg

How we made it through another winter’s

not the question. Nor is it an answer

since one of us was left behind in winter.

 

In Spring, in buoyancy, you asked a question.

Cups stood their ground between us, tea and coffee.

You wished to be the answer to your question.

 

Then winter comes again and yet another,

a darkling season full of melancholy. The yanking

of my soul back to the gutter, that other

 

place where questions have no answers,

and answers only placate. It takes rafters

of steadfast faith, or mettle, to seek answers.

 

Truth is brutal. So much we can’t recover,

years I’ve begged for you to wait for Spring to bloom

again, living in despair beside each other, and another

 

stormy season while we tussle for an answer

or a coda to the sum of all of life’s bother.

I’ve learned to hold my tongue, to question

nothing. Questions are another sort of winter.

 

Food and libation provided by Niche Wine Bar, 1013 Main Street

Sound provided by Briz Loan & Guitar

LGBTQ+ FRIENDLY, ALL AGES, AND UNCENSORED SINCE 2004

Listen to a feature on Ghost Town Poetry Open Mic on OPB Radio’s State of Wonder