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2014

“6 a.m.”, the poem by James Owens, captures the feeling of a story, but not the story itself. It deals with time and what happens in that span of time is revealed in a few startling images. I like how the poem feels capacious, and quietly reverberates after the reading. - Pui Ying Wong.

"6 a.m." by James Owens

first light is a very old hammer
and mist a very old bell
that shimmers and rings
above water on stones

i have walked out alone into the world
where we pray together
young naïve monks
though we are not monks
and we do not pray

i would turn back to you now
i would pray my mouth on your mouth

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Pui Ying Wong's "The Flag" in Issue #27.
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Pui Ying Wong was born in Hong Kong. She is the author of two full-length collections of poems: Yellow Plum Season (New York Quarterly Books, 2010) and An Emigrant’s Winter (Glass Lyre Press, 2016)—along with two chapbooks. She won a 2017 Pushcart Prize. She has poems published in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, Plume Poetry Journal, Atlanta Review, Southampton Review, The New York Times, among others. She is a book reviewer for Cervena Barva Press. She lives in Cambridge (MA) with her husband, the poet Tim Suermondt.


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