By Annie Newcomer:
The Flapper Press Poetry Café features the work of poets from around the globe. It is an honor to share their work and learn more about their lives, influences, and love of poetry.
This week, we feature the work of Jordyn Elizabeth Pimental.
Jordyn Elizabeth Pimental is from the United States, specifically residing on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. A nature-watcher with a soft spot for hermit thrush and blackberries, Jordyn currently has sixteen feathers in her feather collection. While her visual art can now be seen in a few reviews, her writing has recently debuted with Bizarre Publishing House. You can find her at @jordynpimental on Instagram.
We reached out to Jordyn to talk about her passions, influences and beautiful poetry.
Please Meet Jordyn Elizabeth Pimental!
Annie Newcomer: Jordyn, when one hears the words "Cape Cod," the mind quite often imagines the natural beauty of the area, with hundreds of miles shaping its beautiful sandy coastline, majestic whales that migrate just off-shore, and peaked hills and majestic dunes.
How does living with access to such an exquisitely beautiful environment influence your writing?
Jordyn E Pimental: That is such a great question, as my writing is so influenced especially by the changing of the seasons. Living in an area so luscious with scenery all year long usually brings a constant stream of such different ideas depending on where the world around me is at. Am I driving past icy, herring gull–covered salt marshes on a bitter Wednesday in mid-February, or am I on an afternoon walk through my sun-smothered neighborhood where I can view the sea from during early June? Whether it is either of these or somewhere in between, the inspiration for me is usually abundant. “Exquisitely beautiful” was the perfect way to describe it.
AN: What single word or phrase best describes your poetry?
JEP: I would use a word like “surging.” Or maybe “gushing."
AN: Jordyn, in your bio I was captivated by this fun fact about you: "currently has sixteen feathers in her feather collection.” Is this your way of saying that you have 16 published poems?
JEP: Haha! No, that is my literal feather collection from birds; that’s my way of saying I am an avid birdwatcher who has collected a myriad of feathers through my birdwatching journeys. For my feather collection, it's really all about luck! I birdwatch very often, and I love to take keepsakes of whatever I happen to find while I'm out in the forest searching for birds. I find more in the autumn and the spring than I do any other time of year. Some were also given to me, it's become a thing for my family and friends to pick up feathers they find and gift them to my collection. My most exotic feathers were all presents, I have a peacock feather from my mother, five or six parrotlet feathers from my partner's mother, and two blue-and-yellow macaw feathers from my uncle.
AN: Ahhh. A poet who collects feathers. I love this! So may I ask you to tell us about yourself and how you became involved with poetry and what poetry means to you?
JEP: Although I am currently an English student who is quite literally studying poetry and literature in general, I consider my creative writing endeavors entirely separate, as poetry means a lot more to me than just being an academic pursuit. I’ve always seen poetry as little glimpses into other worlds of your own creation. You’re able to take a tiny feeling or minute moment and elaborate on it, crafting it into something much bigger.
AN: Please name some poets whose poems influence yours and share why.
JEP: I have a preference for many of the woman greats like Maya Angelou and Sylvia Plath—"The Colossus" is one of my favorite poems of all time. Both of them knew how to weave emotions into a beautiful piece of something else altogether, something that I always keep in mind when writing myself. I also adore my childhood favorite, Shel Silverstein, who reminds me there can be so much beauty in both simplicity and the odd.
AN: Two poems that you are sharing with us are titled "My Dog Keeps Running Away" & "Stupid Enough to Pick the Hibiscus Anyway,” which are prose poems. How do you describe the genre of prose poetry to a person who is new to this form, and what draws you to this form?
JEP: Firstly, to me, prose poetry differs from the norm of “standard” poetry, as there are more storytelling devices such as character or foreshadowing. It can also be looser in structure. I personally like to write my prose poetry as a block of prose and then read it out loud and create line breaks where the rhythm naturally falls, whereas for a typical poem, I write it with the rhythm at the forefront of my mind.
AN: Your third poem, "Dark Eyed Junco’s,” is about sadness. How does one stand before the emotion of sadness and set their mind to write about this tender emotion? Have you decided before you write what the poem will be about, or does the emotion lead you and unravel as you write?
JEP: Usually, for a more personal poem such as “Dark Eyed Junco’s,” the process actually starts with me having a specific line and feeling in mind, and I work at slowly building an entire poem around it. The first line I had drafted for this poem was actually the last line, which I envision is surrounded by dread and sadness, so the emotion was both present in the beginning and unraveling throughout.
AN: I love your titles. I am a title person and see the title as an important way to help my reader enter my work. Might you walk us through how you create titles for your poetry and share how you think your titles are important?
JEP: Thank you so much! I relate to you fully, I am a huge title person as well. My personal belief is that titles should act almost as the thesis, capturing the “point” of your piece in a clear and concise way. If I’ve written something and I don’t have the title in mind to begin with, it will always become apparent by the time I’m finished with it. I like to think if you don’t have your title then you know that your piece isn’t done yet.
AN: Jordyn, how did you hear about Flapper Press?
JEP: I actually found Flapper Press through Instagram. I was looking at the page of another publication I enjoy and saw yours! I investigated your website from there and greatly enjoyed everything I read.
AN: Is there a question that you might like to be asked that wasn’t? Please share the question and your answer.
JEP: I can’t think of anything particular to add, and I just loved all of these thoughtful questions!
AN: Thank you for joining us in the Flapper Press Poetry Café. Now it is time to ask you to share 3 poems with their backstories for our readers, We would love to hear more about your poetic journey in the future, Jordyn, and all our best.
JEP: Thank you so much!
Dark-Eyed Junco’s
My dad has a hammer with a carmine red face
His toolbox sits in the shop stickered with gushes of memories
I did something good last Tuesday-eve
On the phone, my mom told me God likes it when I do that
Both lilac and lavender and eight princess-cut spinal jewels
Occupy my head, my dreams coated with purple-vision
I wake with a sureness from the dark-eyed junco’s song
Yet I don’t know what’s wrong in my heart and my knotted hair
A child of the stars I think, the first word I ever uttered
Or maybe I’m only as real as the sugar in my coffee
This year on my birthday I’ll be surrounded by all the light
But I can drink alcohol or I might die.
About the poem:
This poem is more personal in style and chronicles dealing with a steady sadness.
My Dog Keeps Running Away
I live in this kind of little red barn house that only exists inside a gilded October memory.
Not so much a finite memory but more so when you know you’re simply remembering the remembering itself.
Think of pudgy ripe pumpkins and bright McIntosh apples
(or some sweet Pink Lady’s if you’re so compelled or even Granny Smith’s if you have oddball tastebuds).
Think of a home full of knick-knacks that create prisms all over the walls in the late afternoon light.
It’s been this time of year for a while now.
The weather can get so chilly outside during this unusual autumn but I don’t worry about my black cat, Louise, because she always comes back.
Food is her anchor.
And I know I will see her at suppertime the same way I know October’s moon will rise again, with the exception of once a month.
The reason for my churning insides as of late is that I don’t know if I will see Walter, my dog.
He’s a çatalburun, his existence is a rarity, I’ve never even seen another dog of his breed before.
I’m unsure which makes me squirm more, that I don’t know if I will see him or if he’s even mine.
I had a neighbor only once before and Walter was hers.
An only partially unpleasant, witch-like older lady with turquoise fingernail polish and an obsession with artwork from some other time that I’m barely aware of.
Sometimes, she’d join me for a meal, that’s how I met Walter.
I would sneak him a morsel under the table with every visit and I felt despite knowing me so little, he may have liked me so much more than her.
But the turquoise-fingered hag left nearly two summers ago,
and as strange as it was for her to leave before the harvest,
it was even stranger that she left behind Walter.
I’ve claimed him as my own ever since, although as I admitted, sometimes I don’t know if he’s mine or if his “true owner” will come back to re-possess him. She doesn’t even love him.
That tidbit of worry aside,
I must say that I love him.
Certainly, not as much as he loves me, yet I sense pieces of love from him from time to time, especially when I feed him or when the sun shines just right.
I wished he’d stop leaving me for days and days, and that I would know when I’d see him next.
I wondered if he gave his previous owner the same treatment
or if it was just for me.
Why me?
And when would it end?
During the storm-induced nights, if Walter was home (if he even called it that) I would hold him tight. I just wanted to let him know he was held by me when the oak branches swung and the thunder roared.
His white fur and tan spots and all were held by me.
But after nights like those it would be a strong guarantee he would be gone the next day and often longer than usual.
I felt that my trust should be entirely fractured, like a broken childhood bone, in two.
My trust wasn’t for whatever reason and my arms were open to Walter, even more open than they were to my sweet Louise, who gave me the security I desired every day without fail.
I cannot escape this little red barn house that only exists inside a golden with speckles of opal October daydream
and my dog keeps running away with the wind
and I don’t know what to do about it.
About the poem:
The first poem is a sad mourning over something that is somehow both yours and not yours in the chill of mid-autumn.
Stupid Enough to Pick the Hibiscus Anyway
When I was very little my mother told me a story about a girl who bottled up everything inside her body and then exploded.
My body is a container for many emotions
and I used to fear physical combustion too
but now I know that it was just an old tale made to scare me into spilling everything to her.
This summer was a mastermind.
She came in delicately like a good summer should,
I caught hints of her slowly throughout the spring,
but then she burst open all at once with her heat swashes and her ginger lily blooms.
I usually liked to exist inside summer.
Normally, I’d pick the ginger lily flowers at the stem and save them in my dotted vase until they’d shrivel up dead. After their passing, I’d then press the petals into picture frames and hang them up on my pink walls.
Although that routine made me happy, now is not normally.
This summer, she may be bright and warm and near perfect but this summer:
I am not.
Last summer I was close,
I was independent and busy - too busy for a mistake.
A springtime mistake.
It was the middle of this spring - just last season when I saw something I had never seen growing by the east side of our house.
A gorgeously magenta flowering plant gleaming with a smile at me in the sunshine, dew-dropped and soft-looking.
I knew if the flower made a sound it would be a mellifluous chime as if it were a tiny bell.
I knew if I could taste the flower it would be sweet.
I was smart enough to know I should wait for summer’s ginger lilies but I was stupid enough to pick the hibiscus anyway.
Temptation is an embarrassing thing.
A temptation that was followed by betrayal is even worse.
I strayed from my usual and now I wondered if my mother would still love me.
I hid that hibiscus flower I had plucked underneath my bed in the left corner of my room.
Ever since my misdemeanor, the great egret who frequented my neighborhood left, these lion mane jelly’s erupted all over the shore, and the wind’s been too heavy on the palms.
Everything’s all wrong and it’s noticeable.
Luckily nobody’s pointed a finger at me,
at least yet,
however, I wonder if it’s just a matter of time.
When does the sting of the jellyfish or the scare of the gusts become too much for someone to realize that it’s all my fault?
How much bad fortune will it take for me to be ratted out?
This summer may be a mastermind but
she’s out to get me.
She’s out to tell on me.
She’s out to ruin my life.
I hope that the hurt of my mistake will subside with next year. Because next year I knew I would wait for the ginger lily flowers.
I would be good.
About the poem:
This poem is an obsessive compulsive, messy mistake in the heat of summertime.
Annie Klier Newcomer founded a not-for-profit, Kansas City Spirit, that served children in metropolitan Kansas for a decade. Annie volunteers in chess and poetry after-school programs in Kansas City, Missouri. She and her husband, David, and the staff of the Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens are working to develop The Emily Dickinson Garden in hopes of bringing art and poetry educational programs to their community. Annie helms the Flapper Press Poetry Café—dedicated to celebrating poets from around the world and to encouraging everyone to both read and write poetry!
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