Featured Poet: Ardelle Osborne, Swanzey
Ardelle Osborne was born in Concord New Hampshire the daughter of a Congregational minister. She attended public schools in New England and the Rhode Island School of Design. She graduated from the Boston Museum School. She raised a son during these years and then traveled to Europe and Greece on a scholarship. In later years, Ardelle traveled several times to Asia. She's studied with Pat Fargnoli, William Doreski and Sam Albert. Her publications include: The Connecticut Review, Passager, Diner, Concrete Wolf and the anthology, Public Places. She was a finalist in the 2008 Comstock Review contest and her winning poem will be published there.
Of her featured poem, Ardelle writes:
It is strange to be on a Greek Island surrounded by a sea of fishing boats and not be able to find fish to eat. Actually it's downright frustrating, and why there was a problem I never did find out. My Greek poems are full of fish and water, but on this island and at this time of year (just before the tourists arrived) any decent food was difficult to find . There was one restaurant which served only beef, and this in itself was an oddity because as good as the meat might be to begin with it always ended up ruined! The island was beautiful however, and out of season we felt pretty exclusive.
Love Story for the Little Yellow Fishes
We want to eat fishes
but there are no fish.
Each clumsy boat
resting buoyant as balloons
on the Ionian Sea gives
us the same answer - no fish.
Eventually in an ocean-side
taverna he buys
seven fresh spiky yellow
fish and takes them in
a plastic bag to the stony beach.
For half an hour he squats
where water touches his feet
and, with a delicate knife, scores
each, feeling the depth
to the backbone. With his huge
thumbs, he rolls
back the flesh, probing
the pink billows. He eviscerates
them, throwing the entrails
to the gulls swirling like
kites above. Concentrated,
he never looks at me. He
tenderly washes their gutted
bodies in a green plastic
pan with seawater, places
them back in the plastic
bag, then looks up and smiles.
Later, on the little stove
in the room, he simmers
them, graced with oil
and lemon, bony but delicious.
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