West Trestle Review - Cross-Ties

Sophia Tempest Parsons :: Callie S. Blackstone

6/12/2021

“when I want to eat I eat
and eat and eat and eat
and eat and eat and eat”
-Sophia Tempest Parsons

Sophia Tempest Parsons does what poets are supposed to do. Her writing is vulnerable and fearless. It’s brutal. Her sparse poems leave readers with no room to hide. She wants you to know what her world is like, and she refuses to hold your hand and apologize while she tells you how it is. She makes you look into dark places and acknowledge their existence. I found myself reflected in these places, which is one of the most healing aspects poetry can have for me. When I see someone bravely embracing their own darkness, it is easier for me to embrace my own without shame. I devoured her chapbook A Lamb Hangs by Its Own Foot (Ghost City Press) in one sitting. I give it as a gift to friends who love poetry. I encourage you to give yourself the gift of reading Parsons' work and following the beginning of her writing career, which I am confident will be a productive one.

~Callie S. Blackstone

Drawing of a lamb hanging by its own foot as book cover

Thi Bui :: Jenna Lê

4/11/2021

Thi Bui's dynamite graphic memoir The Best We Could Do skyrocketed onto my all-time favorites list instantly: it's an intimate family story strung out on the pitiless frame of history, the way the membranous part of a dreamcatcher is stretched across its hard outer frame, such that every reader is drawn in -- implicated -- caught. Bui's visual art, not only in The Best We Could Do but also in her award-winning illustrations for the children's book A Different Pond (by poet and author Bao Phi), has a heartstrings-tugging watercolor-like tenderness: it's amazing to find an author so equally gifted with words and pictures. Many of us children of refugees have heard our parents tell stories bearing similarities to the tales Bui tells, but it takes talent to make the scenes spring to life the way she does, often with just a single thoughtfully chosen visual detail or scrap of dialogue.

~ Jenna Lê

Sheree L. Greer :: Jasmin Lankford

2/22/2021

“We are flawed and perfect. We are the light after the blackout. We are all doing the best we can, and now have the chance to be better.” -- from “Voices on Addiction: None of This is Bullshit” published in The Rumpus.

Sheree L. Greer is a fabulous friend and mentor. Her writing is smooth, honest, and strong. I find myself returning to her essay in The Rumpus often. Sheree’s words are vulnerable and necessary. The way she stands firmly in her truth encourages me to keep standing in mine.

In addition to being a text-based artist, author, and educator, Sheree founded The Kitchen Table Literary Arts Center to showcase and support the work of Black women and women of color writers. This warm community celebrates the power of sharing stories and will definitely sharpen your writing skills.
~Jasmin Lankford

Sheree L. Greer

Sheree L. Greer

Kristin Bock :: Diana Whitney

2/19/2021

I first met Kristin Bock at a living room poetry reading on a dark January night. Years later she reached out to me and we became friends, sharing life stories and poems and favorite books. Meeting her eased the isolation I felt as a queer, rural writer raising children in a small town, struggling with depression and doubting my path. Our friendship gave me hope. And her poems haunted and stunned me with their precision and passion. I devoured her book, Cloisters, winner of the Tupelo Press First Book Award, and welcomed her insights about my work.

I just reread Cloisters under the covers by flashlight (my sacred time during this pandemic) and was mesmerized again by its emotional drive and spare, visceral imagery. Also its humor. “Watercolor Left in a Humid Kitchen” gets me every time.

Kristin lives in Western Massachusetts and teaches writing at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she got her MFA. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals, including the Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, FENCE, Pleiades, Prairie Schooner, and Sixth Finch. Her fabulous new book, Glass Bikini, is forthcoming from Tupelo Press late in 2021. For a taste, here are four poems from that collection.

~Diana Whitney

Ebukun Gbemisola Ogunyemi :: Roseline Mgbodichinma

2/14/2021

I met Ebukun Gbemisola Ogunyemi when I got into SprinNG as a poetry mentee; she was my mentor and she taught me a lot about poetry (structuring, form and style) and writing in general. The most profound of it all is her ability to make me understand that I don't need to have any reservations or shame because my advocacy plays out in my writing, and at the same time I should explore diverse forms and not box myself. She taught me to find my voice and own it and above all because of her, I know that my art cannot be home for all; I have an audience and I can't possibly please everybody or cater to everything in my work and that's okay. I am completely smitten by her. She's great!

Ebukun is a creative writer, researcher, editor and content writer with more than four years experience in creating and writing stellar, original and engaging contents for digital and non-digital brands such as African freelancers, glance magazine, The odyssey etc. Ebukun is also the manager of the SprinNG Women's Authors prize (the_swapng) a literary award committed to promoting and empowering female Nigerian Authors by investing yearly in the buying and distribution of a select author's book.

~Roseline Mgbodichinma

Hillary McCullough :: Kristin LaFollette

1/30/2021

I was introduced to artist Hillary Jones McCullough by a mutual friend after Hillary indicated she was looking for a writer to help her develop a grant application. We teamed up to work on the application, and I ended up helping Hillary develop her personal website in the process, learning quite a bit about her work with photography and digital storytelling. Primarily a photographer, Hillary's work focuses on conveying the complexity of the human experience. Her current project, which is titled The Birthmother Series, uses photography and interviews to tell the stories of women who made adoption plans for their children. Follow McCullough on Instagram @hillarymccullough

~Kristin LaFollette

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A post shared by Hillary Jones McCullough (@hillarymccullough)

Eugenia Leigh :: Joan Kwon Glass

12/29/2020

A man teeters at the edge

of the East River.

After his last deliberate swig, the man

lifts his bottle over his head as if considering

whether to sacrifice it. He hesitates.

Where is the memo about knowing

what to save, what to abort?

A woman clips a leash to a toddler, and I notice

a sign asking not to climb the rocks please.

Everyone warns us off the rocks.

What will keep us from the river?

~from “Deciding Not to Drown Today”

Eugenia Leigh

Eugenia Leigh is the Korean American author of the poetry collection Blood,
Sparrows and Sparrows (Four Way Books, 2014), winner of the Debut-litzer
Prize in Poetry and finalist for Yale’s Series of Younger Poets. I first
read Eugenia’s book in 2017, the year that I lost both my sister and her
11-year-old son (my nephew) to suicide. In the midst of acute grief and
PTSD, her poetry was one of the few things I could hear inside what felt
like a rubber bubble, keeping me safely apart from the world. As a
biracial, Korean American woman, I longed for poems that could reach me,
and I found them. In spite of the fact that South Korea has one of the
highest suicide rates in the world, the Korean American community as a
whole has long insisted on silence when it comes to suicide, abuse, and
violence. I have turned to Eugenia’s poetry in my own writing process, when
I’ve needed courage and inspiration. Her poetry sings, wails, and
whispers. Eugenia’s latest poem to be published, “Gold,” can
be found in the Summer, 2020, issue of Pleaides, as part of a folio of Korean
American poets, edited by E.J. Koh. “Gold” brings us full circle, back to
“Deciding Not to Drown Today” by exploring the reasons why we should step
back from those rocks, and stay.
~Joan Kwon Glass

Noʻu Revilla :: Charity Yoro

12/8/2020

Noʻu Revilla

your black inscriptions cite a kino lau,
whose feathered wingspan, nighttime eyes & pun-
ishing beak comprise mo‘okū‘auhau.
– kino

Noʻu Revilla is a poet from Maui, "invested in creative projects grounded in aloha ʻāina and intersectional justice and often center discussions of gender, sexuality, belonging, and Indigeneity." I had the honor of meeting Noʻu briefly at my first AWP conference in Portland in 2019, where I was struck by her magnetic presence on a panel of (equally phenomenal) Indigenous writers. Revilla's poetry is seductive and sonically fluid and anchored in the na'au place with great love & attention given to her mo'oku'auhau, her lineage. I find myself, even now, thinking back to her breathtaking performance last spring –– a compelling collaboration of photography and poetry, a love letter to both the photographer and Revilla's ʻaumakua, the lizard.

Noʻu Revilla's chapbook, Say Throne, was published by Tinfish Press in 2011, and her latest chapbook, Permission to Make Digging Sounds, was published in Effigies III in 2019.

~ Charity Yoro

Kaity Altu :: Jerrice J. Baptiste

11/24/2020

Kaity Altu

"Her voice echoing through my mind like the fluttering of a thousand butterflies, light and airy. I can feel the smile in it as one feels the gentle breeze flowing through a field of poppies."
~Kaity Altu

Kaity Altu and I met at a new writer's group at one of our local libraries. I sat next to her bold, humorous self. Her imagination caught my attention. Kaity responded to each prompt with great sensitivity, and a colorful attitude, being from Puerto Rico. Her writing of short stories stirs curiosity. They often touch on LGBTQ issues. Her talent to keep a reader interested comes naturally and is very authentic. Kaity is a writer to keep an eye open for success.
~Jerrice J. Baptiste

Gabriela Yadegari :: Kolbe Riney

10/24/2020

Gabriela Yadegari is an American artist studying at Bennington College in Vermont. She primarily works with auditory and visual media.

Gabriela and I grew up together as children. As we went our separate ways after school, I could not help but return to this art that she was putting forth. Her work has always been deeply focused on the texture of the world, both inside and outside her mind. It showcases things that are expected, and small, like digging in rich soil or a spread of oranges; but also things that are unexpected and live inside her mind, like the use of organic dyes to make modern art stamps and cat litter to create cracked textures. Her deep focus on these things is inspirational to my own work as a writer; it prompts us to think deeply about the textures and colors of our own lives, our own works. Poetry is a combination of both visual art and the written word, and Gabriela lives at this transition site as well.

~Kolbe Riney

Gabriela Yadegari