Avren Keating is Ephemera's September Poet

(4 Poems & More)

Welcome readers!

We’re happy to introduce Avren Keating, our selection for September’s Poetry at Ephemera. Thanks to Avren and everyone who submitted in July.

If you’d like to participate, we will be fielding submissions each month to publish one poem per issue from the same poet for the month. Each poet receives a $200 honorarium. For full rules and more info please see our designated post about Poetry at Ephemera. You can also submit via the button:

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Introducing, Avren Keating!

Writer Bio

Avren Keating is a poet and artist living in Oakland, CA. A finalist for the 2023 Cowles Poetry Prize, Interior Weather is Avren’s first book. They have published poems in Small Press Traffic's Traffic Report, Works & Days vol 2, EOGH, and others. Avren also hosted “Waves Breaking,” a podcast where they interview other trans and gender-variant poets about their craft.

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Artist Statement

I’m currently interested in writing about misunderstandings—intentional or otherwise. Some poets talk about poetry as mode of language that can express what normally cannot be expressed in everyday conversation. It’s fun for me to try and figure out how to write about disconnects in language with a hyperaware mode of language. As part of that exploration, I’ve been working the past year or so with mondegreens and homophonic translations of Icelandic songs. Many of my characters end up misunderstanding each other, or themselves, or give up trying to be understood in the first place—I think this is fueled somewhat by the methods I’m using to write.

Artist Website

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Poems

Each issue of Ephemera spanning September will feature one poem from Avren. After each issue drops, the poem from that issue will then appear here as well. We like to introduce our poets first with a bio and an artist statement. We’ll send periodic reminders to check back in when the poems are available. This post will remain on our Substack, free to view, for the year. We hope you’ll enjoy these poems and revisit Avren’s page from time to time.

Poem 1 of 4

Red Language

I didn’t tell you that the slick
honeysuckle mushed underfoot
on the way to your door slipped
something shaky from me. Red clustered
characters filibustered from my
knees after the fall, I hid them all, 
only my cheeks recalled them after 
you opened your eyes very close to mine. 
A language I could feel and you 
couldn’t read. You drew the curtains 
on the conversation with a certainty 
that made me uncertain. I good-byed, 
passed by a mug outside on the porch–
an ant couldn’t resist a tumble 
into the honeyed tea you’d left out all night.

Appears in Sept.1 of Ephemera

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Poem 2 of 4

A Skipping Stone 

Big hand’s on 1:20, little hand’s on me
and flings me outward, a skipping stone
skimming across the cloud tops
toward the faint blue glow still on the horizon.
It looks like you did when you said
you still loved me.

Night trailing behind, holding
onto my shoulders. I thought I could catch up
to that west light and finally be rid of the dark. 
I won’t quite make it in time
going in circles.

I’ll always be a here, and you’ll 
always be a there: across the table
across the country, across from my 
disbelief. Because who would keep a stone
that was once painted and now
washed clean? Perfect for skipping.

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Appears in issue Sept.2 of Ephemera

Poem 3 of 4

Container Era

We’re here to hear hell in foal; 
to see a stream marring
itself in different spots, each ripple replicating 
a horse churning into our own shores. 

Instead, you’ve got everything packed
behind the tin can lid moon, and I can
respect that because I do the same. 
Point to the shine, the edge’s sharpness
where it’s cut clean by the dark,
what it can hold without saying a word. 

You think you can make it out
when you’re ready, when you’ve found a knife
to open. But this isn’t just some Blue Period—
none of us makes it 
out of this; not a single one of us 
makes it out of this. 

Appears in issue September.3 of Ephemera

Poem 4 of 4

Death of a Karaoke Singer
For S.R.

The intros are the hardest part,
worse than the “ooo”s and “ahhh”s
that guide us. Oh, but alone 
they’d stood in winter and braved “Blue Monday”
and I hollered with the rest of the bar. 

In our skins deep blues pulse.
In our evenings we call for each other. 
The karaoke singer
ate the darkened star in July—
became a sea tide in the hospital.

No day, I can’t see the door’s light.
I stink of eve–all bitter.
No guide now, oh, alone
I took my own delight tonight.
I’ll keep my songs for late at night.

Appears in issue September.4 of Ephemera