The latest from 'Passager' and 'jmww'
The local literary scene just got a bit richer, with new editions of Passager and jmww, two Baltimore-based journals.
The latest issue of Passager showcases winners of its annual poetry contest for writers older than 50. The journal, which was founded by Kendra Kopelke and is published at the University of Baltimore, was created "to explore the imagination during the later years and to hear the passion that is so often attributed to the young."
The summer issue of jmww, edited by Jen Michalski, offers poetry, nonfiction, fiction and reviews by writers in the Baltimore area and elsewhere. Contributors include Jéanpaul Ferro, Merle Drown and Michael Downs.
Here's a poem from Passager...
Barbara Young, 77, is a frequent visitor to the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center near her home. In the fall, thousands of geese land at the center during their migration.
The Wheeling of Geese
That wheeling, that wheeling, may cause tears
If you stop to stare at a sky clouded
With Canada geese who have flown up
From a field and now wheel round and round
As one until the Great Mystery
Tells them all is right for the journey;
Then oh how like tiny gymnasts they tuck
Their legs against their bodies and
Push their necks forward, straining, straining
To be elsewhere.
While she always preferred The Hardy Boys to Nancy Drew, 
