Tipton Poetry Journal – Summer 2021
Vince Charles Cantrell He writes lines like, The vacuum cleaner in my brain sucks away all bad thoughts, as a witch climbs spider silk toward the moon in my blood. I call that the irrational heart on its trampoline, from moon to lake and its reflection to dark docks where couples sit, sometimes dangling their toes in the water. I wonder how I could get a snake with a frog in its mouth into a poem. The snake makes me recall a student with a rattlesnake tattoo on his wrist, who whispered one day to Vince while I was explaining Coleridge’s love for imagination over fancy, that he’d rather be riding his Kawasaki than listening to this poetry shit, and I overheard Vince say, Cool it.
Charles Cantrell has poems in recent or forthcoming issues of Miramar Poetry Journal, The Café Review, The Hamilton Stone Review, and Stand. A book of poetry, Wild Wreckage, was recently published (2020) by Cervena Barva Press. He’s also been nominated 3 times for a Pushcart Prize, and has received fellowships form Ragdale, Ucross, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
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