Last summer I received Honorable Mention for the poem, “My Glacial Erratic” in the 2020 Fish Poetry Prize. Recently published in the Fish Anthology 2020, the book is available on Amazon and it’s free via Kindle. Here’s an excerpt of my poem:
Excerpt of “My Glacial Erratic” by Leah C. Stetson
Since that shock, I’ve grown
Obsessed; I’ve spent my nights
Delineating the dark-Romantic
Ecology of gothic heroines.
Let’s call her “Emily,” as she
Leapfrogs through stories,
From Radcliffe to Shelley
Across moors of the Brontës,
Seashores of du Maurier.
Bits of blue lichen, green pens
Fly off my papers; I botanize
Udolpho, Frankenstein, Brontë’s
Poems, and Mathilda; I analyze
Incarnations of “Emily,” both
Linnaean-botanist and poetess,
Wary of nightshade, briony, moss.
She’s my eco-heroine, and
My glacial erratic: mysterious,
Preserved, as if stone, more wild
Plant, a natural history of flowers,
Ferns, marsh fairies; I chase
Her like Wollstonecraft’s Mary
Pursues the will-o’-the-wisp.
LCS
For the full poem, please check out the Fish Anthology 2020, or on Kindle.
Strange Wetlands™ 