
Photo by Paisley Rekdal.
READ LOCAL First represents Utah’s most comprehensive collection of celebrated and promising writers of fiction, poetry, literary nonfiction, and memoir. This week we bring you poet Jennifer Tonge. Tonge resides in Salt Lake City and earned an MFA at the University of Utah. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and, most recently, as part of the Visible Poetry Project.
We begin with Jennifer’s poem, CATAFALQUE, which originally appeared in the New England Review. This poem is followed by a series of syllabic acrostics in which the Turkish name of the title fruit runs down the poem’s left margin. Tonge came up with the idea from the fruit she ate in Turkey while living there. The poems are featured on Zoetic Press’s podcast The Literary Whip theliterarywhip.com.
CATAFALQUE
Stone and twig and chip,
the world we walk
immediate, sharp-edged.
She is going,
as the leaves are going
copper, going red.
This beautiful fall,
like any fall,
a pyre.
*
This high basin,
brimmed with mountains.
Deer come down
to the avenues,
in the summer
the gulls come in
to the inland sea.
The sky’s come down
to the mountains
this year; the aspen
-leaves strike it,
the bone-like trunks
of the birch
are stark against it.
The air is like glass,
it makes everything
crisp and near.
*
When I go to the foothills,
I look out at the basin;
when I go to the basin,
I look back at the mountains.
The old conundrum,
a tether at either end.
I stand looking into
a maple tree:
This yellow has pushed
through yellow, pushed
through gold,
is on its way
into another realm,
where it will find
or be waiting for her.
THE TURKISH PEAR
A moment of renunciation—the world
Recedes beneath the sudden flush, gilt with lutes’
Minstrel notes. Each one flickers its tart edges,
Undone by that whispering sweet, the same sly
Tantalus that made you reach, that made you bite.
THE MUDANYA FIG
If you would know me, you must break my skin—see, it’s bruised
Nearly black with readiness. It will just tauten, then
Cleave and show my many constellations. Don’t grimace;
Injury is part of every union. You want my
Ruddy pulp; you can’t get it without using your teeth.
THE TURKISH MELON
Khan’s favorite, from plateaus poised like cool hands
Above fevered plains, rough-skinned site of his most
Verdant longing; you think you know your own, but
Under your hand it is changing—not a globe,
Now you’ve opened it. Hollow without its seeds—
THE TURKISH APRICOT
Keep to yourself your secret,
absolute as ice. Should you
yearn to tell, recall only
in that unchaste split-second
surrendering the last time—how
it took forever the tree—
THE BURSA PEACH
See if you can do this cleanly: the cleft velvet
Envelopes—no, purses—unimaginable
Fullness; it will gush at your bite, it will drench you.
Think this hyperbole in what words you choose, staid
Adam reaching, then know it in the flesh: it is
Luscious beyond recall. But, you think, this region
Is famed also for its baths and its thick, thick towels.
THE TURKISH SOUR-CHERRY
Volition
is such a
shuddery
net, it can’t
ever hold.
THE TURKISH PLUM
Ever the beloved: first-fruit
rich on the altar, soft landing
in lap. Ever luscious, ever sere.
Killingly do we covet it.

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Categories: Literary Arts | READ LOCAL First