Greetings, readers! Today I’m delighted to introduce you to one of my dearest friends, the poet Sara Schlossman. More than twenty years ago, Sara and I met at a writing group called First Friday held at Rollins College. We clicked right away. Sara is a warm, funny, generous friend and writer. With kindness and depth-of-soul, she helped me navigate Undertow along its path, and later was an integral help with poems included in my second book, From the Porch to the Page: A Guidebook for the Writing Life.
I’m so grateful for my poet pal, Sara. We continue to be sounding boards for each other’s work to this day!
For this post, Sara gave me permission to showcase her poem, PRELUDE TO TESLA-IN-SPACE, first published in The Hong Kong Review: An International Journal of Literature, Culture, and the Arts. Guest Editor: Anjanette Delgado. Summer 2019. Vol. 1, No. 3.
Below her wonderful poem you can find her official bio.
PRELUDE TO TESLA-IN-SPACE
Walking my hound beneath a moonless night
soon after New Year’s raucous craze
I looked up at the decisive moment —
Witnessed an ascent of fire so fast
& furiously aflame I realized
this cannot be fireworks from the neighbor boys —
— I clicked through my brain’s catalogue
of previously known things in the night sky;
recognized nothing. Maybe it was my longed for
cosmic wishbone, a fireball comet sent
to grant earthly desires before its fall.
Close enough: This flash, a prelude to humans’
first flying car which, in fact, has launched &
is now space-junked in orbit around the sun —
Testament incessant to our species’ need
to scorch — we, such wielders of spark bang & fury.
Sara Schlossman
… is a poet who works as a marketing director for a small corporate entertainment company. She resides in Orlando, Florida, where she has been part of the local writing community since moving from Brooklyn, NY. She produced Poetic Logic for The Arts Connection, the long-running literary arts segment for Orlando’s NPR affiliate WMFE 90.7FM. Sara often credits Florida’s humid bright hothouse-like atmosphere and its community of talented and generous writers for enabling her to grow her poems.
Her poems have appeared in La Presa, American Journal of Nursing and in The Louisiana Review.
One more thing …
Long ago when Sara produced and hosted Poetic Logic on the radio (mentioned in her bio) in one episode she honored me by reading my poem “Letter to the Editor,” which was published in The Florida Palm magazine in 2006. It was later republished in my second book, From the Porch to the Page (2022).
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Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
Nylda Dieppa
Sounds like someone I’d like to know! Thanks for sharing.
Peggy+Lantz
I love “wielders of spark bang and fury”!
Darlyn L Kuhn
I remember Sara from First Friday, and also from Poetic Logic. You are both wonderful friends from the past, whom I remember with great fondness.