Lauren Fancher is Ephemera's June Poet

(4 Poems & More)

Welcome readers!

We’re happy to introduce Lauren Fancher, our selection for June’s Poetry at Ephemera. Thanks to Lauren and everyone who submitted in April.

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, Lauren Fancher!

Writer Bio

Lauren Fancher is an artist and writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. She works with original, found, and appropriated materials to make video, sound, image, sculptural, and written works. She currently serves as the Director of ATHICA: The Athens Institute for Contemporary Art, a non-profit artist-run arts center.

More about Lauren: www.laurenfancher.com

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Artist Statement

The poems selected for Ephemera reflect (1) my ongoing interest around the history and culture of the Greeks and Romans, their mythology and rituals, and enduring legacies in the our language; (2) my experience in our current society, in which women who express themselves with strong language, anger, or frustration are marginalized and disparaged, leading them to have self-doubt; and (3) a bit of wry humor.

The speaker in “Gorgon,” has cast herself as Medusa, a woman with a snake-covered head who was so terrifying and hideous that she would turn anyone who saw her to stone, but she was also a source of protection to those that aligned with her by wearing her image (aegis). The speaker is looking in the mirror at her deficiencies, as if looking through the lens society holds out towards all difficult women. So many mistakes, so many snakes.

“I Saw” is something that really happened one day. I tried to capture the absurdity of my misunderstanding and turn it into something that stabs you a little bit in the heart.

The “Sagaris” was a long-handled axe wielded by fearsome Amazonian (female) warriors. Through a metonymy that crosses cultures, language, and history, an authoritative woman is today often labeled as a “battle-axe” or “battle axe.” Just thinking about that.

The Dionysian rites were crazy reenactments of a myth in which women were taunted with pinecone topped staffs (thyrsi) to the point of madness. Really? Yes, really. Definitely, drugs were involved. And powerful wine. After the “Agrionia,” the crash must have been brutal.

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Poems

Each issue of Ephemera spanning June will feature one poem from Lauren. After each issue drops, the poem from that issue will then appear here as well. In this case, we’re launching part of Lauren’s first poem below as a preview before the full issue comes out. This post will remain on our Substack, free to view, for the year. We hope you’ll enjoy these poems and revisit Lauren’s page from time to time.

Poem 1 of 4

Gorgon

When counting my fears 
like the snakes on my head,
I look in the mirror:

Poor woman, it’s not your fault,
you are rotten inside.
To escape you, I’d take a sacred med,
a second drink, or 
stay in my room.  
Your lips of puce, your writhing hair,
the loss of all who gaze on you—

A snake by my ear
looks me right in the eye, sibilating:
bridges, airplanes, wells,
responsibility, hotel rooms—

Another the color of that
stranger’s bed purples up and adds:
men, authority, your temper—

And a third twines around my neck,
her face like my old teacher’s, gleaming:
remember when you?

Wordlessly 
another braid of serpents
blooms, my dancing corona

Blossom Gorgon, 
my aegis, my friends, my beautiful dread chorus.

Appears in June.1 of Ephemera

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Poem 2 of 4

I Saw

I saw a man with a clothespin for a nose

A clothespin nose an orange clothespin

He stood by a truck in the gas 
station parking lot.

He was hairy and green and
unshaven.

He was smiling.

He had an orange ear piece, not a nose.

He still seemed deformed.

I saw a man with a clothespin for a soul.


Appears in the June.2 Issue of Ephemera

Poem 3 of 4

Sagaris

Hyphen or not, fishwife, trophy, trope:
we might as well love our stout, ferocious

keen edge

When the mood strikes, or the moon
we sail the Scythian plain

composed of notions
buttons and buttonhooks

chopping down

mending

Appears in issue June.3 of Ephemera

Poem 4 of 4

Agrionia

Mix pure wine with wine,
Catullus,
and sing me a party.

We’ll go mad
and tear things up,
limb from limb,
and eat you, and beat you
with our tossing thyrsi.

Did you say “thyrsi?”

Our symbols are carved
in red and black against
Our will.

Still, we dance across
the vases, goblets high,
even when we wish
we’d gone home sooner.

Appears in issue June.4 of Ephemera