Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Lisa M. Hase-Jackson is Zangara Poet!

One of the most active poetry blogs right now is Lisa M. Hase-Jackson’s  Zingara Poet. Recent topics include: a review of Rick Mulkey’s new book; regular poetry picks (see her submission guidelines); interview with Santa Fe Poet Laureate Joan Logghe; lots of poems of merit from knowns and unknowns; and even an interview with moi (http://zingarapoet.net/2011/11/29/interview-with-kansas-poet-laureate-denise-low/ ). Something new and unexpected appears regularly in my social media-feed, and I’m always glad to see it, at ZingaraPoet .
Hase-Jackson is herself a challenging, socially conscious commentator who chronicles histories wending through landscapes, as in this poem:
 
Lonely Is

Built low to the ground,
the bungalow’s curtained windows hid
the family’s exodus for years
until dry rot set in and neighbors
noticed what they hadn’t before.

      When ‘xactly was it
     Jake stopped comin’ ‘round?

Standing solid in the crab-grass covered
drive, its frozen engine home to pack-rats,
a ’72 Chevy truck, single key still hidden above
the sun visor, weathers patiently.

Inside   strewn   across   knotty pine   floors
             after   common   thieves  and   strangers
             have vandalized and sifted,
             a photo album lies open

             in its pages  sepia   photos   of fish
                   that      got   away,  
              evenings  at the 4-H fair
              ribbon-winning laying hens
              hen-pecked by  tussled-haired  children
 
nearby   baby clothes   crocheted blankets
              mildew scented bunnies   and bears
              standing   on their   ears

 decaying  volumes   of  Encyclopedia Britannica
                     a children’s bible

 eggshells   and   bird droppings
              beneath  rotting  holes  in the ceiling.

Lonely is the house
           at the end of the lane
overgrown with Hoary cress
and thistle leaning
          in the wind.   

                                (Pilgrimage, Volume 37, Issue 1, 2013)

Lisa Hase-Jackson holds a Master’s Degree in English from Kansas State University and is pursuing an MFA at Converse College in Spartanburg, S.C. She is a poet, teacher, freelance writer, writing coach, and editor of ZingaraPoet.net and 200 New Mexico Poems. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in such literary magazines as Sugar Mule, Kansas City Voices, Pilgrimage, and As/Us Journal. Editor, 200 New Mexico Poems  Twitter,  @ZingaraPoet