Rebecca Givens Rolland embraces an assimilation of internal feeling and thought with circumstances of the natural world and the conflicts and triumphs of our human endeavors. Here, we discover a language that seeks to at once replicate and transcend experiences of loss and disaster, and together with the poet ”we hope that such bold fates will not forget us.” Even at the speaker’s most vulnerable moments, when ”Each word we d spoken / scowls back, mirrored in barrels of wind” these personal poems insist on renewal. With daring honesty and formal skill, The Wreck of Birds achieves a revelatory otherness what Keats called the ”soul-making task” of poetry. — Walter E. Butts, 2009-2014 New Hampshire Poet Laureate
Liquids “create indeterminate forms at the surface… that are never absolutes”
How can distance increase, entice hundreds of miles? More the girl chases, more messages face backward, till she’s left only
militancy, marching-music, wind. Sputtering, she knocks breath’s buttons: jackets thread stitches, spin hooks. Itinerant, pooled glass transmits message; what about the ever-counting child? Scholar might teethe
self from trouble, yet ruin mud-spilled fields. To speak, she raps throat, clears borders: mouth swooning (cautious, inked)
she dives. Bad weather at least offers solace: clouds,
cumulus, flattened, press workhorse, then
good shepherd, on her tongue—
Text Message
I planted a microphone in the bush, and the bush
sang. No burning, just a muted internal
hum. Floodwaters sloshed by to say hello,
proffering an upsurge of bulbs. Scarlet,
azalea, do-not-forget-my-name. No
gardener, I keeled them up in clumps. Almost
no effort to crush them, just a squeeze;
I wouldn’t say I was sorry to blacken their
lines. Next time, I’ll bring jam and a bucket
of daisies: singe me, I’ll wager white petals sneer.
“Presence,” in 236 Magazine (Boston University)
http://www.bu.edu/236magazine/past-issues/current-issue-2/poetry-rebecca-givens-rolland/
Bring on the unborn, the as-yet-
unreleased—let the sand-trap
convex, turn mechanism
at the throat’s base, beating
gold with the threat of steeped
branches, bleating over and
over tired till the hash
of rain no longer treads
lightly, thrushes hunger
fallowly abroad, chest whips
tree-long, under its own
houses, its burnished hair—
“Colony,” in Carte Blanche
http://carte-blanche.org/articles/colony/
As if first inscriptions were enough, slate-riven water
I plunged my face
in. I thought I’d drown. What survival conceals itself
in tunnels, what contingencies linger
underground.
“The Underworld in Springtime” in Switchback
http://www.swback.com/issues/015/underworld-springtime.html
After so much exactness – after
one angle of wind that
shivers, lashes metal filings till
underlying rust flattens
out – after it no longer contains
any motion, wheels
of tendons threaten to unwind, dissolve
in dawdling ash as ship-
wrecks settle, elsewhere, on the inattentive
floor—
Commentary from North American Review: ““Three Fish” by R. G. Rolland explores the intersection between artistic potential and desire. The stunning art for this piece is from newcomer Matt Manley and captures the story’s discord.
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If you’re interested in talking with Rebecca about speaking or consulting projects, please contact her.