2020 / POETRY / AUTHOR

JAMES CROAL JACKSON

CRACKED WINDSHIELD
…

Sudden the stone that cracked
the windshield, the storm that
struck the heirloom oak– you
ask for rain, beg for answers.
Soaked hands steer through
the blindness of the blur–
ten years now since Dad
merged into the final lane,
his pass misjudging distance
from collision, and that night
Mom heard a screeching
in her bedroom like a crow
passing from another world,
a bleak siren thrusting her
to darkness her headlights
could not cut through.

…

JAMES CROAL JACKSON (he/him) is a Filipino-American poet. He has a chapbook, The Frayed Edge of Memory (Writing Knights Press, 2017), and poems in DASH, Capsule Stories, and Ghost City Review. He edits The Mantle Poetry (themantlepoetry.com). Currently, he works in film production in Pittsburgh, PA.

WHERE TO FIND JAMES CROAL JACKSON: WEBSITE

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POETS IN MORSE CODE EXPLORES THE ROLE OF INTERPRETATION IN STORYTELLING. BY INCORPORATING MORSE CODE, ONE OF THE MOST WIDELY USED AND RECOGNIZED CIPHERS IN EXISTENCE, SAITERUX JUXTAPOSES LINES OF POETRY AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHS AND TECHNICAL ILLUSTRATIONS OF FLORA & FAUNA FROM THE EARLY DAYS OF SCIENTIFIC EXPLORATION. THROUGH THE TEXT AND IMAGE PAIRINGS, THE ILLUSTRATIONS LEAN INTO THE ABSTRACT ELEMENTS OF A STORY, RECOGNIZING THAT STORYTELLING DEPENDS ON THE WRITTEN WORD AS WELL AS THE IMAGINATION, EXPERIENCES, AND KNOWLEDGE EACH READER BRINGS TO THE OCCASION. MORE FROM SAITERUX