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NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
Winter 2022
2021 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE FINALIST BY LAVONNE J. ADAMS
Ghazal: Reflection Against sable sky, the clouds seem dipped in mercury, mirrors of moonlight. Still, lacking lightning and thunder’s glissando, the night belies the word storm. From eaves to ground, solitary raindrops mime a watery wind chime, distill the weather front from ephemeral to earthy – something we can feel. Like a small resurrection, the air is laundered of exhaust, the tang of garbage. Stilled stoplights flash, cast amber pools like pollen across pavement. Those of us who are awake during night’s opaque envelope crave this stillness, our neighbors’ windows glistening like sheets of black ice. Branches of live oaks mimic an opera-gloved audience. Yet dreams instill an unease that will shadow dawn like an unfed dog. Then . . .
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
the revenant sun shall spread its carpet, resurfacing the water-glazed streets. Be still, dear reader. Wait for the clarity that every transformation brings.
Bathed in Light (oil and cold wax on cradled panel, 24x24) by Carmen Grier
CARMEN GRIER’s studio and home are located in Bakersville, NC, near Penland School of Craft in rural Mitchell County. She earned a BA in music from the University of Iowa, an MA from UI in Textile Design, followed by an MFA in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI. She has been creating functional and art textiles for forty years and has recently added painting to her current practice. She has taught and exhibited nationally, been awarded national and international residencies, and her award-winning work has been featured in Fiberarts Magazine and Surface Design Journal.
LAVONNE J. ADAMS is the author of Through the Glorieta Pass (Pearl Books, 2009), two poetry chapbooks, and more than 150 individual poetry publications. Retired now, she was a lecturer and MFA Coordinator for the Creative Writing Department at UNC Wilmington. Her most recent publication is a group of fourteen poems and an introductory essay appearing in Artful Dodge. She has completed residencies at the Harwood Museum of Art (University of New Mexico-Taos), The Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, and the Vermont Studio Center, and she was a GilbertChappell Distinguished Poet for Eastern North Carolina.
