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Natalie Young
Follow the link to learn more about All of This Was Once Under Water, Natalie Young’s 2023 limited-edition, full-color hardcover book that contains this and five other poems by Natalie Young published in OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters.
Victim:
Albatross chick: six months. Cause of death: starvation due to a full stomach. Contents of stomach: cigarette lighters, pump-top sprayer, nut shells, shot gun shell, broken clothespins, hundreds of bits of plastic.
—National Geographic picture caption
Cold knots melt in watery bundles;
She takes comfort in the small
pools and chilled air
leaning against chin and wrists.
Flakes of snow string
to the ground, weave and fluff
the city’s dressing gown.
She doesn’t turn to the alien,
instead sighs straight ahead into frozen
stitches drifting in the street-light glow.
We won’t catch these in our mouths,
too dirty… A hand waves at the air,
swats a flake. She thinks of snowballs eaten
from the ground, a child’s cold teeth,
a full belly.
About the writer:
Natalie Young is a founding editor for the poetry magazine Sugar House Review. By day, she works as an art director for an ad agency based out of Salt Lake City. These poems are part of a manuscript that mixes factual scenery and history with speculative fiction, in order to explore peculiarities in human nature, culture, and environment. Poems from this series have been published in Green Mountains Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Rattle, South Dakota Review, Drunken Boat, Pilgrimage, Spillway, and others. Natalie is left-handed, half Puerto Rican, and a fan of Carol Burnett and broccoli. Natalie Young is the Featured Writer at O:JAS&L for November 2018.
UPDATE: All of This Was Once Under Water is a limited-edition, full-color hardcover book that contains this and five other of Young’s poems published by OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters. The book, illustrated beautifully by the German artist Maximiliane Spieß, is now in release from Shop Quarter Press.
Image: Abstracted Blue Spruce by Andrew Marshall. Watercolor. 18 x 14 inches. By 2018. By permission.
About the artist:
Andrew Marshall is a painter, writer, and photographer living and working in the eastern Sierras. His paintings, photographs, essays, and poetry have appeared or are forthcoming in Open: The Journal of Arts & Letters, The Offbeat Magazine, Gravel Magazine, Trampset Magazine, The Raven’s Perch, Junto Magazine, West Texas Literary Review, Upventur.com, and Backpackinglight.com. Andrew Marshall is the Featured Artist at O:JA&L for November 2018.
OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprint Buttonhook Press, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation supporting writers and artists worldwide.
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