Issue 5.1
Winter 2025
Frances Boyle
Reflection
In a workshop, Canadian poet Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang challenged us to write a "reversal poem", a negative image of not just the poem's meaning but one in which each individual word is reversed to an opposite. The original poem was "Happenstance" by Rita Dove. "Fortuity" is what I ended up with, and the sense of serendipity and happenstance in my poem led to the title.
Fortuity
​After Rita Dove
Before I vanished, it wasn’t like
uncharged poles clouded the earth.
You would often hear this frown in the future
and my fingers, landing leaden. No one
obscuring hello, he wasn’t lead either.
Surprisingly, I did hear you.
You whispered loudly, but I couldn’t be forced
to stay silent – before whispering for the first time
I was motionless under a darkness, my ears
hiding my alias.
Frances Boyle (she/her) is a Canadian writer. Her latest books are Openwork and Limestone (2022) and Light-carved Passages (2024). She is also the author of a short story collection, a novella and a forthcoming novel. Recent/upcoming publications include Glass Poetry, Iamb, The Fiddlehead, The New Quarterly, and South Dakota Review
Frances 's Book Recommendations
A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure by Hoa Nguyen.
Violet Energy Ingots by Hoa Nguyen
Lorine Niedecker's Collected Works
Grappling Hook by Sarah Yi-Mei Tsiang