Cross Tie 5.26.15: Janelle DolRayne

                                                                                                                  But those colors I’ve seen
                                                              and that road is somewhere, and I have the strangest 
                                                                desire to give an old friend a high five though I don’t
                                                                                                                                 understand why.                                                                                                                                                  
                                                                                                 from "Celebration" at The Collagist


When you read Janelle DolRayne's work, you feel like a trusted friend. In an ongoing series, Janelle responds to Abstract Expressionist paintings by sculpting ekphrastic poems that linger in the mind like their arresting visual counterparts. Her poems are both dazzling and poignant as they embody the transformative experience of art to startle us into our imagination and lived experience. When I arrive at her last lines, I want to rush back to the start. She is a special writer, a dear grad school friend, and I'm excited to share her work with others.

Janelle is a former poetry editor of Copper Nickel and the current production editor at The Journal. She is a recent MFA graduate from The Ohio State University. Her poems and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in The Laurel Review, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, The Collagist, Parcel, Interrupture, and the 2013 Best of the Net Anthology, among others. She is the recipient of an Academy of American Poets Prize and the Vandewater Poetry Award. She is originally from Coal Creek Canyon, CO.     --- Shelley Wong, Poet of the Week

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