[Christine P'legion]

Yellow Arrow Vignette AMPLIFY has just come out, and includes a sonnet of mine: https://www.yellowarrowpublishing.co...on-pennylegion

[Martin Elster]

Congrats, Christine! Being buoyant and weightless in water is so much more enjoyable than fighting against Earth's gravity on a piano bench. The last couplet made me feel refreshed and happy. I love "Her arms were cranes / in flight, her back a pillar rising from / the sea." If you don't have the ocean, you may as well learn to swim the way Grandma did.

[Susan McLean]

Lovely.

Susan

[Glenn Wright]

Hi, Christine—

Poems, particularly shorter ones like your beautiful sonnet, are like ink blot tests. They reveal to the readers much about their view of the world. As I read your poem I was sure that it would end with your grandmother sinking below the surface of the water in an explosion of bubbles. I guess I’m either a pessimist or just cynical about book learning. I like your happy ending much better than my darkly imagined horror story. Congratulations on publishing it!

Glenn

[Christine P'legion]

Glenn! That is too funny. I suppose I wouldn't be here if it had happened your way, but here's a rewritten couplet, just for you:

One day she met the ocean, slipped inside—
Alas! the lessons didn't take. She died.

And thanks, Martin and Susan. I'm very pleased with how this one came out (and with Yellow Arrow's editing process; they helped me smooth out a few little things and make it a stronger poem).

[Jayne Osborn]

Congratulations, Christine. That's a lovely poem.

Jayne