— Victoria Dym
— Evelyn Romano
— Lennie Hay
I Can Hear My Heart Breaking
–— Victoria Dym
…it sounds like tractor trailers
motorcycles, sputtering engines…
… rubber tire tread that remains…the side of the road
plastic bag, left shoe…sitting in the parking lot
…the WAWA on Anderson Road
my stomach, like undercooked street-skewered chicken…
…I am smudged mascara, closed car windows.
130 degrees…like a child left strapped in her car seat…
Swallowed
— Evelyn Romano
the sun scribbles color
along the horizon
this day is over
without giving notice
light fades
in tiny steps
shadows a sweep of
haze: gray upon gray
a sea so pale
it disappears
this choreography
a model
i observe and dismiss:
i scurry around
get lost in the light
forget the dark
hold out my hands
swallow the wafer
darkness follows
The Hour of Esperanza
— Lennie Hay
From Lost In America, Broadstone Books
A row of plastic pews fastens to the beach
like clumps of sea oats and bitter panicum grip shifting dunes.
Dozens of sharp-tailed sandpipers line up where the water
meets the sand. They come for evening sustenance
as we do. We wipe sand crust from chairs, tread across dried-brown
seaweed to the time of erasing the day’s remains.
A kind knot of conversation, our vespers.
Before the gold host meets the horizon’s altar, infinite line drawn
across the water, we recite simple verses:
puppy-play, art underway, grouchy neighbors
Ghost crabs creep. They know the time is near. Voices rise, then fall.
Invisible arms hold brilliant light on the horizon long enough
for us to soak in twilight splendor, palette of cleansing surprise.
Gold becomes mauve, shifts to azure before birds disappear and we sand-
shuffle inside. Constant yellow beach daisies line the path.
Victoria Dym is a graduate of Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Clown College with a degree in Humility, and holds a Bachelor of Arts, in Philosophy, from the University of Pittsburgh, and a Masters of Fine Arts, Creative Writing-Poetry from Carlow University. She is currently working towards a Narrative Therapy Certificate. Her prizewinning chapbook, Spontaneous, was published by the West Florida Literary Federation in 2022. Two earlier chapbooks, Class Clown (2015) and When the Walls Cave In (2018), and her full-length manuscript, The Hatchet Sun (2023), were published by Finishing Line Press. Victoria is an improv artist with regular performances at the Commodore Theater and yearly appearances at the Countdown Improv Festival, and she hosts and produces Poetry on the Lighter Side, where poetry and improv collide. Victoria holds Laughter Yoga workshops and works as a patient actor with Nova Southeastern University, USF and the University of Tampa. Read more about Victoria in a 2024 feature article in Tampa Bay’s Creative Loafing Magazine.
Evelyn Ann Romano is an award-winning poet whose poetry has been published in numerous journals including Bacopa Review, Sandhill Review, Wordsmith, Chasing Light, New Mirage Quarterly, Palettes&Quills, Cadence, Time of Singing and many others. She is a three-time Tampa Writers Alliance Poetry Prizewinner. Other awards include Mt. Dora poetry prize, New River Poets award and Hillsborough County Library award. Excerpts from her poem, “Love Letter to Tampa” were displayed city-wide at numerous locations as part of the Love Tampa project run by the City of Tampa. Her debut chapbook, RIPE was published in 2018 by FinishingLine Press. Her latest chapbook, Eve Redeemed- A Woman’s Journey was published in January 2023. Evelyn has been an OLLI member since 2016 and was a member of Lifelong Writers at USF for many years. She is a New Jersey transplant who lives in New Tampa.
Lennie Hay grew up in the Midwest living between two cultures—Chinese immigrants and German Ukrainian farmers. She now lives half of the year on the banks of the Ohio River in Southern Indiana and half of the year in Indian Shores, Florida. She earned her undergraduate degree in English from the University of Minnesota, master’s and doctorate degrees in education from the University of Louisville and an MFA in poetry from Spalding University. For more than 40 years, Lennie worked as a teacher, principal, district leader and educational consultant. She grew up studying piano and pipe organ and indulges her love of jazz and classical music whenever and wherever possible. Lennie’s work has been published in various regional, national, and international print and online journals such as The Louisville Review, Accents, Shanghai Literary Review, The Heartland Review, and City Lights e Magazine among others. Additionally, her work was included in the 2019 literary anthology Boom and in the 2024 Florida Bards Poetry Anthology.
Leave a Reply