Ellen June Wright: "At the Dodge Poetry Festival, Waterloo Village, c. 1994"

At the Dodge Poetry Festival, Waterloo Village, c. 1994

More than two decades now, I stepped out of
               the rain and into the cabin in Waterloo

and passed the crowd and speaker following
               my instinct to be warm and dry and found

behind a pony wall a bench, a hearth, and logs
               aflame. And there in front of the fire,

I heard a man begin to speak.
               His voice was seasoned with the accent

of the Southwest. I fell into the arms of a phantom
               who spoke of learning to read behind bars,

of trying to hold on to love with the only thing he had--
               his words. He spoke of gangs and other worlds

I had never known. He drew me to him,
               and whenever I open his books, I hear his downy

voice again asking me to remember the fire
               and the crackling logs, remember the need for warmth,

remember how sweet it was to fall by fire's light.

Ellen June Wright’s poetry was most recently published in (or is forthcoming in) Plume, Tar River, Missouri Review, Verse Daily, Gulf Stream, Solstice, Louisiana Literature, Leon Literary Review, North American Review, Prelude, Gulf Coast and is forthcoming in the Cimarron Review. Her work was selected as The Missouri Review’s Poem of the Week for their website. She was featured in the article, Exceptional Prose Poetry From Around the Web: June 2021 by Jose Hernandez Diaz and she has received Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She also hosts a weekly poetry workshop on Zoom for Black poets. Ellen can be found on Twitter and Instagram @EllenJuneWrites.