Issue 5.1
Winter 2025
JoAnna Scandiffio
Reflection
The term "outsider art" bothers me. This term is often used to classify art that is not mainstream. Who determines what is in or what is out? I love artists who live on the edge, the fringe, who use non-traditional materials—old buttons, discarded eyeglasses, stuff most people throw away, and artists who make us see the world upside down or slantwise. The processes of these so-called outsider artists influence my work. I am a scavenger poet, rummaging through art, science, and everyday stuff that happens. I salvage old love letters, leftover dreams, rusty pots, and pans to make poems with missing parts. My poems are night passengers, zookeepers, bullets. Give me a wishbone. I will set the house on fire.
Everything is a Mix
of what you eat how you brush your teeth
if you are late or last in line
or first to wear your skirt too short
how the mix swerves is moot
just make do with what’s left on the plate
when you don’t have white clay
paint earthenware pots blue and white
make a bowl you aren’t afraid of breaking
like tradition or your grandmother’s bible
everything is a mix of Judo Christian Hindu
Pan American Southwestern
even the air is filled with Old Masters
who gave up whaling ships for electric blue
once the sky is streaked bird feathers splatter
a soup can becomes a masterpiece
the background more interesting
your old blue and white china cup
a toothbrush holder
JoAnna Scandiffio is a gemologist living in San Francisco. Her poems are like bird nests, made with fragments randomly connected to hold the moment. She is like the old medieval monks who copied out verses in colored inks so the world could sing forever. Her work has appeared in Calyx, The Poeming Pigeon, Poets 11, Sugared Water, The MacGuffin, Italian Americana, The RavensPerch, The Ekphrastic Review and other journals.
JoAnna's Book Recommendations
​C D Wright Deepstep Come Shining
Naomi Shihab Nye Words Under the Words
Ocean Vuong On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
anything by Anne Carson and Emily Dickinson.