Published Poems in Online Journals

“It is a widely known fact that Alison Granucci is an extraordinary literary citizen.
But it is my belief that Granucci is among the most talented and undersung poets of her generation.
She has a gift for confronting the most difficult truths of the human experience—from mortality to grief and the inevitability of suffering—
and imbuing them with incredible beauty. I’m amazed by Granucci’s ability to use language as a vehicle
for transformation, metamorphoses, and ultimately redemption.” —Kristina Marie Darling (excerpted)

[excerpt from “They Say It Was Random”]

You’re lying on the floor next to a good friend
when you hear the soft rustle of pillow
like the one your mother used to swaddle you as a child,
this one used by the man standing behind you
to smother the sound of gun, a soothing cushion for him
to cover his lover’s mouth […]

“Lord, these poems are powerful.” —Marie Howe

“The Loon’s Call” (after and for Robert Bly)
“Closed Gentian”
- with audio recordings ~

[excerpt from “The Loon’s Call”] 

Did I tell you how I long to live                             

inside a sitar note, to be pressed by pained fingers
into song? To ache is one joy. Another, how the bees work             
all day to fill their pockets with dust. 

“The Listening Field” (Haibun)

[excerpt]

“Bird time,” J. said. Newly met, third date, each of us slowly gave our weight to the other as we listened to the lullaby choir of twilight. The only words we spoke: “Rufous-sided towhee.” “Bluebird.” “Peewee.” After an hour, I asked if it was dinner time and he said, “Not yet. It’s still listening time.” Dusk settled and the towhee’s voice gave way to the sonorous purr of bullfrogs; and they, in turn, to the songs of dark: a lone barred owl. Then a duet of owls….

“Marvelous! The feeling of a joyfully attuned experience.” —Peter Campion

An Introduction to Alison Granucci by Kristina Marie Darling

Portfolio of six poems:
“Datura and Klotho Meet at the Holy Door of Birth”
“Says the Body and the Soul” {born
“Through Life Like Water: I Find the Hidden Stream”
“To Grieve a Tree”
“Body of My Mother”
“Look, she says”

Portfolio of two poems:
“The Disquieted Eyes of Piero della Francesca’s Frescoes”
“Stellar Jay (formerly Steller’s Jay)”

[excerpt from “Through Life Like Water: I Find the Hidden Stream”]

A walker of deer paths, I’m aware they are no ordinary way. From the squirrel with the ragged ear, I learn the art of stillness and becoming bark. From the red-spotted caterpillar on my thumb, I learn the art of changing direction.


[excerpt from “The Disquieted Eyes of Piero della Francesca’s Frescoes”]

II. Fragment of Saint Julian in His Moment of Self-Realization that the Brutal Curse Placed Upon Him at Birth, From Which He Fled, Has Been Fulfilled by His Own Hand

are not we all     so spell-haunted     having
once upon a time agreed     to some secret self-
betrayal     large or small, in order to survive
under these same burning stars     hunted
like the stag     thinking we are free     to outrun
our vow

“The poet expressing her engagement with the artwork is what allows this ekphrastic work to transcend.” —Jenna Baugher

“Ode to the Sphenoid Bone”
(forthcoming)

 

“Teacher Bird: or Meditations on Phoebe” (Essay)
• Creative Nonfiction Finalist, contest issue 53.2, online

[two essay excerpts]

When out of the great cosmos of all creation a bird arrives as the new shape of your mother returning from the dead, tell me, what does it not have to teach about the nature of temporality, the invisible force of love, and the thinness of the veil that separates the dead from the living? It could be any bird. Any creature, really. But in the case of my mother, she came back to me as an eastern phoebe.
•
…or maybe [Gaia] explained that love is not only an invisible force but is matter itself, that love is what comprises the bright, and dark, wispy material of space. Or suppose [she] simply revealed the most basic, hidden truth: that birds are the true stitchers of the cosmos, that their flight embodies the upward winding of the Sacred Way, that birds are the link between worlds.

What I’m trying to say is this: perhaps the goddess Phoebe heard her mother’s voice the way I now hear mine: in a small bird’s prophecy.

“A voice that is a little rebellious, one that wants to push convention, one not afraid to say ‘blessed’.” —J. Drew Lanham

“Ode to the Star-nosed Mole”
~ see also Published Poems in Print for journal cover image ~

[excerpt]

In this untold below, what prey but my own fear would I eat —

— and for what would I pray?

“Who else could have found divinity in such a lowly, earth-bound creature?” —Nickole Brown 

[excerpt from “Ode to the Petiole”]

each leaf leaves the branch from a push:
self-destruction built in as self- 
protection: the tree cuts what it needs to live
scissors its supply   chokes its veins
until,
daily, this slender connection
can barely hold on

[excerpt]

one small white moth   tumbles, clumsy   from dream to tongue
the whole garden   alight   world returns   form-ward to substance                           
nothing has changed

“A striking and precise poem of epiphany.” —Ana Bozicevic

SUMMER: Issue 9
“Death Enters the Garden” (Page 39)
~ see also Published Poems in Print for journal cover image ~

WINTER: Issue 11 / Featured Poet
“Winter Garden” (page 44)
”Untitled” (page 60)
~ see also Published Poems in Print for journal cover image ~

[excerpt from “Winter Garden”]

Every ephemeral furl that bloomed is gone.
Now even the falling snow is gone
following the warmth of my upturned palms;
even the surprising rising of that crow leaves
only an afterimage of what I never saw;
even the memory of my mother  

                                                            can’t be found —

“The ecological infinite is very hopeful, a foreverness in the death.” —Leah Naomi Green

“Says the Body and Soul” {leaf / reservoir

[excerpt]

only one thing matters: the dry depth of my
useless thoughts
and how to learn to drink
from the emptiness of the thoughts themselves

“Both an ethereal and hopeful work, and one of rugged desolation.” —Dewdrop Editor

[excerpt]

Once there were many, multitudes —
a vespertine spiral rising from the chimney
of the old, abandoned house. Oh,
how full of God those evening skies!

Tonight: one.

“Decaedom: A Spell for Wild Cherry”
~ with audio recording ~

[excerpt]

But Wild Cherry revivaldies!
Bacteria, earthworms, fungiall recylefeast —
All to celebrate impermanence which is
The Kingdom of Decaedom.

“A real sense of mythical place and the magic of change. I’m reminded of Lewis Carroll.” —Amber Flora Thomas

 
 
 

Alison shares her poetry news on Instagram #alisongranucci