JOHN STANIZZI

A few words from John Stanizzi: the poems are from a one-year-long project called POND -- The poems are acrostics. Everyday, at different times during the day, I would visit our pond with notebook and camera in hand.  I’d jot down some notes, take a picture or two, if a good photo op. presented itself.  Then I’d head home and write a four-line acrostic using the letters P, O, N, and D. The other caveat, which made the project so interesting and challenging to me, was that I did not allow myself use any of my first words more than once.  I need a different P, O, N, or D word for every day. I began the book on November 9, 2018 and completed it on November 8, 2019, without ever missing a single day.

  

POND

3.12.19

9.05 a.m.

34 degrees

Patterns die hard even this deep into winter.  This wind’s

ovation is for winter’s return to dawn; though the sun has

nibbled away at the snow-pack, it is still knee-deep, slow to

dissolve. And the wind says nothing about spring

3.13.19

8.20 a.m.

21 degrees

Patiently, I keep telling myself, patiently.  Five starlings are

outclassed by a pair of cardinals wheeling across the pond.

Nuthatch’s diminutive grunt-laugh seems to say, Winter’s

deadbolt is still locked, and I come looking for change where there is none.

3.14.19

7.37 a.m.

35 degrees

Pair of titmice in flutter display, the sound of wings, the sound of

ornamental high-pitched vocalizations that sing of corporeal contact,

naturistic flight-dance, flitting, floating down, flying up, spring

dance, mating tango, as the world around them slowly melts.

3.16.19

8.59 a.m.

45 degrees

Parting with a roil, two streams – Fowler’s and ours -- pour into the pond.

Operatic black birds – grackles, starlings – too

numerous and active to count – red-winged black birds, cowbirds -- 

descend on the feeders with an audible voraciousness, devouring everything. 
      

3.24.2019

2.16 p.m.

51 degrees

Pacifistic melting; the breeze is warm; the voice of the stream

ongoing, it blesses the Sabbath with clear water, encourages me to

notate its clarity that I may drink one day, that I may help to nourish this cedar

dragged to thinness and pain by bittersweet from which I will release it this spring.

John L. Stanizzi, a former Wesleyan University Etherington Scholar, is the author of the collections – Ecstasy Among Ghosts, Sleepwalking, Dance Against the Wall, After the Bell, Hallelujah Time!, High Tide – Ebb Tide, Four Bits, Chants, and his newest collection, Sundowning.  Besides Bradlaugh's Finger, John’s poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, American Life in Poetry, Rattle, Poetlore, The New York Quarterly, Paterson Literary Review, Blue Mountain Review, The Cortland Review, Rattle, Tar River Poetry, Connecticut River Review, Hawk & Handsaw, Plainsongs, and many others. His creative non-fiction has been featured in Stone Coast Review, Ovunque Siamo, Adelaide, Scarlet Leaf, and Evening Street.   John’s work has been translated into Italian and appeared in many journals in Italy.  His translator is Angela D’Ambra.  John is a former New England Poet of the Year, and teaches literature at Manchester Community College in Manchester, CT.  He lives with his wife, Carol, in Coventry.  http://www.johnlstanizzi.com