the compassion anthology
  • About Us
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Staff
    • Exhibit Photos
  • Letter from the Editor
  • Poetry
    • Amirah Al Wassif
    • Zakia el-Marmouke
    • Rachelle Parker
    • Michelle Messina Reale
    • Todd Davis
    • Lori Levy
    • Tim Suermondt
    • Amy Small-McKinney
    • Chad W. Lutz
    • Brenda Yates
    • Carolyn Martin
  • Fiction
    • Leo Tolstoy
    • Leslie Contreras Schwartz
    • K. Alan Leitch
    • Laton Carter
    • Dave Barrett
  • Essays
    • Cathy Warner
    • Serenity Schoonover
    • Review of the Movie What Do You Believe Now?
  • Art
    • The Masters
    • Amantha Tsaros
    • Christopher Woods
    • Ann Marie Sekeres
  • Archives
    • Spring 2019, Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2018 Letter from the Editor
    • Summer 2017 Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2017 Letter from the Editor
    • Summer 2016 Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2016 Letter from the Editor
    • Summer 2015 Letter from the Editor
    • Winter 2015 Letter from the Editor
    • Spring 2015 Letter from the Editor
    • Exhibits/Fundraisers 2015
    • Poetry, 2019 >
      • Robbie Gamble
      • Robert Okaji
      • Nicholas Samaras
      • Gabriella Brand
      • Sarah Wernsing
      • Jen Karetnick
      • Cindy Veach
      • Seres Jaime Magana
    • Fiction, 2019 >
      • Ruth Mukwana
      • Andrea Gregory
      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Rebecca Keller
    • Essays, 2019 >
      • Review of the movie GIFT
      • Jalina Mhyana
      • Stephen Dau
      • Alexandra Grabbe
      • Olive Paige
    • Art, 2019 >
      • Krisztina Asztalos
      • Rute Ventura
      • Laura Gurton
    • Winter 2018 Art >
      • Dawid Planeta
      • Liliana Washburn
      • Ellen Halloran
    • Winter 2018 Fiction >
      • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
      • Herman Melville
    • Winter 2018 Essays >
      • Nikki Hodgson
      • Ciara Hall
      • Sara Roizen
      • Review of Claudine Nash's The Wild Essential
    • Winter 2018 Poetry >
      • Parker Anthony
      • Crystal Condakes Karlberg
      • Julia Lisella
      • Cynthia Atkins
      • Claudine Nash
    • Essays Summer 2017 >
      • Interview with Gail Entrekin
      • Patricia Reis
      • John Nelson
      • Mary Baures
      • Monette Bebow-Reinhard
      • M.J. Iuppa
    • Fiction Summer 2017 >
      • Jean Ryan
      • Daniel Hudon
      • Ray Keifetz
      • Anne Elliott
      • C.S. Malerich
      • Sascha Morrell
    • Art Summer 2017 >
      • Sara Roizen
      • Jill Slaymaker
      • John Mark Jennings
      • Janel Houton
      • Brandon Gorski
      • Tara White
      • Nancy Dudley
      • Elisabetta Lucchi
    • Poetry Summer 2017 >
      • Megan Merchant
      • Joey Gould
      • Claudine Nash
      • M.R. Smith
      • Kim Aubrey
      • Vivian Wagner
    • Winter 2017 Poetry >
      • Dan King
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Sam Bresnahan
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Danny Romanovitz
      • Kyle Quinn
    • Winter 2017 Art >
      • Elliott Grinnell
      • Olivia McCormack
      • Brendan Brown
      • Lauren Waisnor
    • Winter 2017 Essays >
      • Kathleen Byron
      • Eddie Marshall
      • Sofia Colvin
      • Ishita Pandey
      • Mohsin Tunio
    • Summer 2016 Fiction >
      • Jyotsna Sreenivasan
    • Summer 2016 Art The Women Artists and Writers Exhibit
    • Summer 2016 Poetry >
      • Colleen Michaels
      • Jennifer Markell
      • Tara Masih
      • Holly Guran
      • Heather Nelson
      • Bahareh Amidi
      • Alison Stone
      • Julia Travers
      • Amy Jo Trier-Walker
    • Summer 2016 Essays >
      • Olivia Kate Cerrone
      • Katelyn Gilbert
      • Kim-Marie Walker
      • Bahareh Amidi
    • Winter 2016 Fiction >
      • Blue Vinyl, Green Vinyl
      • The Cresting Water
    • Winter 2016 Art >
      • San Giovanni D'Asso Landscape Paintings
      • It's All About the River
      • Jellyfish Sculptural Drawings
    • Winter 2016 Poetry >
      • Poems from Songs in the Storm
    • Winter 2016 Essays >
      • The Gleaners
      • The Aliveness Project
      • Named
    • Summer 2015 Fiction >
      • The Cloak
      • Sanctuary
    • Summer 2015 Art >
      • Environmental Art
      • Compassion in the Midst of Violence
      • Burn Myself Completely for Him and Souls
      • Eye of Oneness
      • Stepping Forward
    • Summer 2015 Poetry >
      • Poem With a Question From Neruda and INDICTMENT
      • The Humans
      • Afghan Boy and other poems
      • Reparations
      • Transference and other poems
    • Summer 2015 Essays >
      • The Ineffable Aspects of Forgiveness
      • He Was Better Than I’ll Ever Be
      • A Voice in the Desert
    • Winter 2015 Fiction >
      • White Heron
      • Freeing a Little of the Madness
    • Winter 2015 Art >
      • Cascade of Care and Life
      • Sentience
      • A Paternal Instant
      • Aurora, Paloma, and the Melangolo Tree
      • Seated Pose
      • Antigone's Map
      • Ladder
    • Winter 2015 Poetry >
      • Dissolution of the Soviet Union
      • Nicknames
      • Stopped at a Light,
      • Why mate for life? Red crown crane
      • The Prisoner
      • Stigmata
      • "Oh don't," she said. "It's cold."
      • Convene
    • Winter 2015 Essays >
      • The Forgiveness Project
      • A Stranger on a Subway
      • A Journey to Compassion
      • The Question of Compassion
      • Reflections on a Childhood Deforested
      • Click, Click, Click
Dancing on Beat
by Rachelle Parker
 
 
Having rhythm is the only way
to remember where home is.
The pounding of wildebeests,
 
the clacking of calabash for a stew
cooked in a caldron on open flame.
Without the beat of my mother’s land,
 
I would forget. I would wither
and lay piled high in a heap of skin.
Bones bent under the weight
 
of what I have come to do,
Calves stretched and knotted
with grief and sorrow.
 
The rumble of the coast, lit by red gold,
calls in the twilight of morning.
The tight skinned djembe responds.
 
A wave of thumps tap my shoulders
and my toes. Moving in the midst
of angola seeds, leaves between my teeth.
 
I am in a hull ready to sprout, again.
 
 
 
Grandma’s Dumplings
 by Rachelle Parker
 
Your apartment is being cleared,
Daughters and their daughters move stuff
into piles they’ve named their own. Your
jewelry box, the tan trench coat. We called it
fake leather. You said “it’s real vinyl.”
Little Momma finally big enough to tie the belt
at her waist, wears it as she packs boxes.
 
Auntie’s wedding shoes still in your back closet
where tight rolls of singles are found between
books, stuffed in dolls with threaded eyes and hair.
Auntie’s husband comes and moves furniture to
the pick-up he borrowed. Your dresser, vanity,
bed with slats: all to be painted white for a cousin’s
room.
 
There’s an apron held on the icebox by a magnet
hook. It’s yellow checkered with peaches for pockets.
The kitchen is the only place I want to be. The only
place not cold. The only place you are, still. I feel
a hair follicle pop, a whisker sure to grow on my
chin that I rub with fingers as if lard and flour
are between. The movement for crust and dumplings.
 
I remove clothes from the line out the window.
The el train passes. The clanging of the rails
louder than the din of mine, mine in the other room.
What will my mother’s daughters sleep on? Why doesn’t
her husband take or fight the other husband. Does
she sit like me being filled by you, in a closet with
the door closed to keep them from taking what’s yours.
 
 
 
Rachelle Parker’s work has appeared in Obsidian: Literature and Art in the African Diaspora, The Adirondack Review, Tupelo Quarterly and others as well as the anthology The BreakBeat Poets Volume 2: Black Girl Magic. She is a fellow of the Tin House Summer Workshop for poetry. “Dancing on Beat” was first published in a journal for The New Jersey Council of Teachers of English and “Grandma’s Dumplings” was first published in Lips.
Proudly powered by Weebly