Her work beautifully expresses an unimaginable challenge.
This poem inspired voters and it moved them. But many also noted how beautiful it was, how powerful and visceral and how it was able to give a sense of not only the emotional upheaval the poet experiences but also the physical pain. It is for these reasons and many more that ‘When Remembering I’m More Than What Wires into Forgetting’ by Elly Katz is the IS&T Pick of the Month for October 2024.
At 27, verging towards a doctorate at Harvard, Elly Katz went to a doctor for a mundane procedure to stabilize her neck. Upon waking from anesthesia, she searched in vain for the right half of her body. Somehow, she survived what doctors surmised was unsurvivable: a brainstem stroke secondary to a physician’s needle misplacement. Her path towards science, amongst other ambitions, came to a halt.
As a devout writer, she feared that poetry, too, fell outside what was possible given her inert right fingers. However, in the wake of tragedy, she discovered the power of dictation and the bounty of metaphor.
When Remembering I’m More Than What Wires into Forgetting
When naked with myself, I feel where a right elbow isn’t, then is. I let my left palm guide me through the exhibition of my body. I’ve never been here before, or so it seems, as I photocopy my snapshots into my draining database. This inventory of remembering only to forget hitches my breath, so I pause for it to resume resigning me to gaps where feeling lives unfelt. I probe for a hip crevice absent to present its coy self, to climb out of numbness. The search survives surrender, as a clavicle crops up from extinct soil. As I reach across the distance into forgetting, I redeem a shoulder at the expense of an elbow. Wholeness is a concept at a remove. I’m all compromise. As I lay on the ground, gravity grounds me through planks four stories beneath, down into the Earth— where I nullify my flesh in dirt, my bones commune with roots fracturing into multiple directions. Pain pulls me closed, and I curl into nothing dimensions— knotting knees into torso, pressing into wooden panels along edges of my free-diving body retreating from contact, from the knowledge that paths to unity abound and mine just happens to be through brokenness.
Additional voters’ comments included:
This poem powerfully articulates how loss exposes excavation, how ruin is pitched against ruin to establish something of beauty, even if wholeness is out of reach.
Profoundly moving. Love wholeness through brokenness
It’s beautifully written and moving.
Elly’s description of self and essence of what her body has become humbles me
A beautiful evocation of what it’s like to be both a stranger and at home in one’s body.
Very powerful and raw piece. Visceral.
You can feel her contortions through her words.
The descriptive nature, contrast and poignancy.
It makes me see another perspective
The language used is so descriptive and poetic that it makes you wonder about each feeling that the author is having as she explores the different parts of her now “disjointed” body.
I voted for Elly Katz because of her openness to take the reader inside her most personal moments and spaces as she daily rediscovers half of her body that she can no longer sense because of a stroke. The poem is intimate allowing the reader to absorb the reality of the physical disconnect but the power, determination and resilience of Elly to remain whole in her brokenness. Thank you, Elly, for sharing with us. I love to give myself time after a first reading to read again and think about how each phrase is skillfully crafted and descriptive and together leave me with understanding I so appreciate. Keep writing!
She is brilliant. She is a fighter. The world needs to see more of her works.
incredibly powerful and beautifully written
Just beautiful!
Elly’s self awareness and ability to describe her reactions to the unthinkable behaviors of her body is awe inspiring.
The juxtaposition of Elly’s word choice creates metaphors that are chilling and unique. She is an extremely gifted poet.
An inspiring story and a beautiful examination of humanity.
It’s so moving to read how Elly handles so much adversity with grace.
I felt her physical pain while reading the piece
Elly is incredibly inspiring and her words are beautifully poetic.
I can FEEL Elly as I read this. The pain of finding your self and losing your self, seemingly on repeat, is not just all consuming for the writer. She makes her reader feel it, too.
I relate to the writer who describes what it’s like when the body and mind seem to be on different paths and with different abilities. It’s very powerful
Compelling story – exquisitely written
Helen Ivory noted: ‘When Remembering I’m More Than What Wires into Forgetting’ takes us through the experience of inhabiting a body which is numbed by trauma. I admire the potency and honesty of this poem and how it calls up in me something that I had never been asked to imagine before. And that casual stepping off at the end of the poem ‘just happens to be’ which belies the depth of the subject matter.
THE REST OF THE OCTOBER 2024 SHORTLIST
When I Met God for the First Time
The God I know works as a baker in a local shop.
From time to time, I see him feeding the kittens bread crumbs soaked in milk.
He is not as huge as the religious men tell us;
his hand is small, a normal size like all of ours.
He even has a red mole above his left eyebrow,
just like my bank employee’s uncle.
One time, I saw him smoking his pipe while his eyes were tearful.
I asked him in an inaudible voice,
‘What is the matter, O God? Are you alright?’
God exhaled his smoke, creating millions of clouds above my head.
Then he looked directly at me.
At that moment, I cautiously approached him; after all, he is God.
And I heard the meow of a cat under his arm.
I stood in amazement, inhaling the scent of fresh bread
while observing the secret stash of kittens,
watching all these flying cats escaping from under his arm.
Amirah Al Wassif is an award-winning published poet. Her poetry collection, For Those Who Don’t Know Chocolate, was published in February 2019 by Poetic Justice Books & Arts. Additionally, her illustrated children’s book, The Cocoa Boy and Other Stories, was published in February 2020, and her poetry book, How to Bury a Curious Girl, was published by Bedazzled Ink Publishing Company in 2022. Her poems have appeared in several print and online publications, including South Florida Poetry, Birmingham Arts Journal, Hawaii Review, The Meniscus, Chiron Review, The Hunger, Writers Resist, Right Now, Reckoning, New Welsh, Event Magazine, and many others. Amirah’s latest book, ‘The Rules of Blind Obedience’, will be released in December 2024.
*
Ritual
You used to wind yourself in curtain turning taut,
look down at your feet, pirouette
as the fabric hugged you in.
I’d idle as you called me
from your hide, and draw
the other curtain. And unspooling
the fabric as I called your name,
you’d turn in the middle and be found found found.
We’d do that daily till your mother took
to waking before us and pulling the curtains wide.
Turning, we’d look out across the garden
onto the fields, the glistening bed,
to see whether Jack Frost had arrived.
That world was a frozen apple
sliced down the middle – inedible, enchanted
perishable should you only see it.
Matt Bryden is a teacher living in Devon. His most recent publication is The Glassblower’s House (Live Canon, 2023) an exploration of fatherhood against a background of personal catastrophe. www.mattbrydenpoetry.co.uk
*
Matred
It is known: a woman like that
brings evil on board.
Look at her, pushing forward, all shriek
and clinging skirts, ticking off
the ways Noah is getting it wrong.
Imagine, close quarters, a year at sea.
Shrew would work, for the galley
is full to bursting with such beasts.
Or nag. No, because what kind of man
abandons his mare, even one like her?
Goad, maybe. Short spear. Or say
she reported visions. Saw herself alone,
skin-soaked, and a flock of women
keening for a world gone under.
Leave out that Noah laughed
in her face before the deluge came.
How she knew he’d drag her
by rain-knotted hair
her protest
drowning in her throat.
Lucy Heuschen has appeared in The High Window, The Storms, Ink Sweat & Tears, Obsessed With Pipework, Lighthouse, Skylight 47 and several anthologies. The author of two previous chapbooks, Lucy’s debut collection will be published by Yaffle Press.
www.lucyheuschen.co.uk
After the medieval “Noah plays” of Chester, York and Towneley. Noah’s wife is traditionally not named in religious texts.
The name Matred comes from a novel by Madeleine L’Engle.
*
Taxi
I took shelter under a tree, where you also sheltered.
You looked at me awkwardly, as if to say Excuse me
before shaking your feathers – a tiny droplet landed on my cheek.
Suspended, we held each other responsible
for the silence. We listened to the rain landing drop after drop,
spreading a beaded carpet over us, and we appreciated
that we had no words in common. You began
to sing – like a radio turned on by a taxi driver
in Tokyo, wearing white gloves. You signalled to look up
at the stars – nameless like us – humming the day-to-day
joy. The rain set its foot on the brakes nearing
the destination. You took off,
shedding the stars.
Mai Ishikawa is a Japanese translator/poet based in Dublin. Her poems have appeared in the Irish journals The Stony Thursday Book, Banshee, Ragaire, The Storms and Channel. Winner of Kyoto Writing Competition Unohana Prize and a participant of Dedalus Press Mentoring Programme.
The line ‘nameless like us – humming the day-to-day joy’ is Mai’s own translation of a 60s Japanese pop song sung by Kyu Sakamoto (lyrics by Rokusuke Ei).
*
Heaven
For starters, the standard works everyone gets: three trumpets blown in unison; your name acclaimed to the galactic hegemony of stars; plus assorted angels with ceramically smooth hands (the nail-work!) casting wholesale quantities of petals (flowers of the deceased’s choice) at your size eight feet.
Then the bespoke part: (you thought it would be the same for everyone?) – beginning, in your case, with David Bowie, a cappella, performing a song penned especially for you, at least the equal (let’s not get too carried away here) of Life on Mars.
And as you listen, because in Heaven they’ve figured out that perpetual spontaneous wonder is hard to beat, something completely unexpected happens – you’re abruptly surrounded by all the things you most loved. Especially the dogs you most loved, especially old Sam. And as you whirl around, fervently grasping his red collar, so he can’t ever run off again, all those needles and hospital rooms clear away forever, except for the nurses and doctors you liked (including the still-living ones. This is Heaven, you don’t have to wait for them to die). They’re all waiting, clad in tender smiles, the young Leo DiCaprio standing under a chandeliered staircase (you liked that scene, didn’t you?), a staircase brocaded in shamrocks and Paddy bunting, toasting you with Guinness (you never liked champagne), lifting frothy stout dark kegs as one in your honour.
After which – because in Heaven everything gets topped continuously (it’s God’s biggest headache) – who appears but – feck! – your favourite comedian Stewart Lee, ending his routine with a punchline about, I don’t know, a winking leprechaun sipping Poitín – after which – double feck! – who else should turn up but your great friend Tara – the girl I never knew; the girl who died aged 21 in the same car crash you narrowly survived; the person you loved perhaps most of all, more even than me. In she sashays, more alive than anyone living, red split-thigh dress, blonde hair swishing, backlit by Kerry countryside. Grasping your cherished hands, she offers a simple Irish blessing –“Maith thú” – and takes you up – (of course up!) – far up and away up, up into the light, which of course is incandescent, scented with your treasured lavender, and charged with such an ultimate brightness that it should be impossible to bear. Except that here, in Heaven, your eyes have been cunningly re-designed to take it, the industrial-strength shutters and dimming lenses manufactured locally could handle a ground zero nuclear blast, they simply need to be that efficient.
And, frankly, given your habitual modesty – phew! Wow, fellas! – yes, you’re a bit flustered by all the attention. But you shouldn’t be. Honestly, you should have expected it. Because while I no longer remember everything about you, I do recall a lot of the things you loved. So even now, twelve years after you died, I’m confident I could create a passable Heaven for you.
But do I need to? You went wide-eyed, with no expectations, into that dark night. Besides, if Heaven exists, it’s not like anything we can imagine; of that we were both certain. Heaven, as conceivable by us, is not for the living. Heaven is for me (and no longer you).
So this is my afterlife for you, beloved wife. And it has one incontestable guiding principle: by day, fine, you can lie in the rainy clover of Ireland, you can have Stu, David Bowie, DiCaprio, the Full Elect of Heaven and any other company you choose. At night, though, seriously – no-one but me.
Cliff McNish’s middle-grade fantasy novel The Doomspell was translated into 26 languages. His adult stories have appeared in Nightjar Press, Dublin Creative Writers, Stand, Confingo and The Interpreter’s House. Twitter: @cliffmcnish