Willawaw Journal

Online Poetry & Art

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Willawaw Journal

Willawaw Journal is an online magazine for poetry and art, published three times a year–Fall, Winter, and Spring. Each issue features the poem prompt of a northwest poet laureate with a model response from the editor who may also promote a theme. Our mission is to encourage writers and artists to create, and to generate a community where a diversity of voices is welcome.

Welcome

Submission Window for Fall 2019: August 1– September 1

Willawaw Journal, Fall 2019, will feature the poem prompt, “Somewhere near Odessa, 1900” by Joanne Townsend, Alaska Poet Laureate. The editor has invites artists and poets to respond with their own versions of departures. General submissions are also welcome.

Read the Guidelines & Submit Your Work

Poet Laureate Poem Prompt—Fall 2019 Joanne Townsend

We hope ‘s Joanne Townsend’s poem, “Somewhere Near Odessa” will inspire you, as a reader, to discover a feeling you hadn’t named before or a resonance you hadn’t expected. For the writer/artist, let the poem as prompt carry you to some place new in your work.

Somewhere Near Odessa, 1900

In the low light by the river
my grandparents, so young,
stand in shabby coats and worn shoes.
The bridge casts violet shadows on their fear,
on the pine trees and frigid cold,
the black rage of Russia
an underlying hiss.
He knows he will leave,
the spoken goodbyes harder than hunger,
the thirst deep in him.
He will work and save,
send for her and the children.
He sees her tears and turns away,
his restless mind already in flight,
his feet tapping, tracks
that will fade to memory.

On the way to America,
those cold damp nights on the Rotterdam,
he hears the fading colors of their voices,
diminishing wave lengths, the tossing ship
and the shock of the lonely dark.

This poem was first published in Zingara and is reprinted with the permission of the magazine and of the author.

More About the Poet Laureate Poem Prompt

The Editor

Rachel Barton is a poet, teacher, writing coach, and editor. She earned a B.A. in English from West Virginia University where she also pursued graduate studies in the art of printmaking. Drawn to Alaska by an older sister, she continued to pull lithographs at the Visual Arts Center until her new family began to manifest. From there, she dove into clay and watercolor. Upon her arrival in the Northwest 25 years later, she earned a Masters in Teaching from Western Oregon University. It was while teaching that she became acquainted with the Oregon Writing Project where she resumed her writing life.
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More About the Editor