Blood Moon, Easter, Passover
by Jennifer Martelli
[Click on triptych to full it full-size.]
Jennifer Martelli was born and raised in Massachusetts, and graduated from Boston University and The Warren Wilson M.F.A. Program for Writers. She’s taught high school English as well as women’s literature at Emerson College in Boston. Her work has appeared, or will appear, in the following publications: The Bellingham Review, Bitterzoet, Sugared Water, Slippery Elm, Tar River Review, Bop Dead City, burntdistrict and Right Hand Pointing. She was a finalist for the Sue Elkind Poetry Prize and a recipient of the Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in Poetry. Her chapbook, Apostrophe, was published in 2010 by BigTable Publishing Company. She lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts with her family and two cats.
What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Blood Moon, Easter, Passover”? Creating the triptych for “Blood Moon, Easter, Passover” was almost like writing a poem in reverse. I had written the poem earlier in the month–the weekend of the Blood Moon eclipse, Easter and Passover (I was doing a poem-a-day with some friends). What became the middle panel is the original poem, sans couplets. Weeks later, I saw Randall’s call for triptychs, which intrigued me. I had three poems that I thought I could try in this form. “Blood Moon” seemed the most satisfying to me because it has as its core this threefold idea of the eclipse and the two lunar holidays. Cool. Adding the side panels forced me to trace the origins of the images: Amy Winehouse, beehive hair do’s, blood, wine. I feel that this form adds so much to a little poem.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
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Submissions
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again March 15, 2023. Submit here.
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