Tara Zafft is Ephemera's August Poet
(4 Poems & More)
Welcome readers!
We’re happy to introduce Tara Zafft, our selection for August’s Poetry at Ephemera. Thanks to Tara and everyone who submitted in June.
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:
Introducing, Tara Zafft!
Writer Bio
Tara Zafft has a BA from UC San Diego and PhD in Russian literature from the University of Bath, UK. She began writing poetry when she was thirteen, and while submitting intermittently in her 30s, while raising her young children it was in her early 50s that she began to dedicate more time and attention to the craft of poetry. Since then, she has published her work in the anthology, Rumors Secrets and Lies, Poems about Abortion, Pregnancy and Choice, Write-Haus, Aether Avenue Press, The San Diego Poetry Annual, Vita and the Woolf Literary Journal, and Dumbo Press. In addition, Tara regularly teaches poetry workshops.
Artist Statement
Poetry first found it’s place in the journals of a pre-teen. I had no exposure to poetry, but somehow intuitively what I now understand as the muse was a voice that was helping me, through metaphor and imagery, to make sense of the world. As I got older, I found myself drawn to the poetry of Keats, Dickinson, later Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Poetry is the lens through which is see and experience the world. I am a collector of experiences, and I am always writing, even if just in my head. I write because I can’t not write. I write because, just like that pre-teen, it is in conversation with my muse that I can begin to make sense of my personal lived experience and the experience of being human in a very challenging time in our human history. My poetry explores my experience in the body of being a child, a woman and mother. I write about the various countries in which I’ve lived and the people who have touched my life. I write about geopolitics and about how I drink my coffee. Nothing is off limits. Everything is part of the lived experience. The universal. The personal. My friends are used to me stopping in the middle of a conversation and saying, “Now that is a poem.” Because I believe that; everything is a poem. Life is one big poem.
Poems
Each issue of Ephemera spanning August will feature one poem from Tara. After each issue drops, the poem from that issue will then appear here as well. In this case, we’re launching part of Tara’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 Tara’s page from time to time.
Poem 1 of 4
Catching Kumquats
I turn down my street. Eggs and milk in bags. Two women block the sidewalk. Their laughter shakes me awake. They are catching kumquats. One woman thrusts a brushless broom into a tree. Trying to shake the little pieces of fruit free. The other woman is gathering them up in her hands, resting them in her apron. Now dirty. Now stained with orange and dust. And one by one she takes a kumquat from her apron. Dusts it with all the gentleness of one who loves. Opens and places in the mouth of a third woman who now comes into view. Bent over nearly balding. Held by a wheelchair. Who takes the fruit in her mouth. Every part of her body pulled by the earth, except her eyes. Alight. Waiting for another bite.
Appears in August.1 of Ephemera
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Poem 2 of 4
Rodin’s Hand I stare at a black canvas long enough to just make out a shadow of a hand, the hand from The Kiss the hand in the middle the hand holding the left thigh were it not for that hand she might fall, I am always drawn to the hand when I see the bronze I am not drawn to the kiss, I see the tender holding reminding me of holding I have had holding I have not had, and now thirty years after seeing the kiss in Paris at Rodin’s home I see myself in the reflection in the black of the paint and wonder if the holding has always been me.Failed to render LaTeX expression — no expression found
Appears in issue August.2 of Ephemera
Poem 3 of 4
I See a Smashed Bird
Today I see a smashed bird on the sidewalk on the way home. The air is soupy hot. The kind you need a scythe to slice through. I drag. Each breath, a struggle. I see what was the bird. Try to walk fast. Past. Try to look away. I cannot. The neglected sidewalk. Thick with bits of wrappers, half a Coke can, two pairs of shoes. Abandoned. Three minutes before I am sitting with my friend. Drinking large black no sugar Americanos. Talking about our families. So far away. My children not children a sea away. And here. Now, a violent bloodless death. And all I can think is somewhere is a mama singing a song of lament for her baby.
Appears in issue August.3 of Ephemera
Poem 4 of 4
Moons
Today we focus on moons, says the dance teacher the bony underside of fingers and toes, stowed like boxes of unused dishes grown dusty with disuse like the details of a story no pen can rewrite or thought unthink the mind has become unhelpful today my daughter leaves my Mediterranean Sea returns to her art and her skyscrapers and her subway and my insides morph into a black-hole-coldness I hide with a smile and say, baby, I love you baby, I believe in you baby, go live your best life and today the teacher, not much older than my daughter says, luna, says stretch into the small spaces between the bones I try in the early overcast hours to sketch with fingers and toes my way into something new.Appears in issue August.4 of Ephemera