Diode ~ What is electropositive poetry? ~ A small indulgence

What is electropositive poetry? It’s poetry that excites and energizes. It’s poetry that uses language that crackles and sparks. We’re looking for poetry from all points on the arc, from formal to experimental. This is what Diode seeks.


Diode is a new(ish) poetry journal that I admire. I came across it last fall and fell in love with a poem by Oliver de la Paz. I was also fascinated that this is an international journal. In the editor's preface last spring, Patty Paine, spoke about needing to build community in Qatar, the somewhat isolated country in the Arabian Gulf where Diode is produced.


I have never been to Qatar, nor the Arabian Gulf; yet I feel real kinship with the work in this journal - which should be stated, is mostly American work. In this new issue it is the Romanian poet whose poem moves me the most: Mihail Galatanu.

In view of full disclosure and a little self-indulgence, I will also post my poem in the current issue of Diode here. It is a poem dedicated to my good friend, the poet Kelli Russell Agodon. The House of Sky is both a line from Anna Akhmatova and the name of my writing studio.

The 4 ‘0’ Clock News @ House of Sky

In the beginning we wanted

to cast ourselves
as opera stars, to break apart

like gorgeous women
palm reading at the piano bar ~

music stinging like salt from the sea.

We were spiraling ridges, dust-darlings
and dangerous.

We were peonies ~ cut
and arranged like astronauts

in flight. We soaked in syllables

not water; rode the Southern
drawl of the wind

over cobalt glass ~
backlit by a disc of sun.  

  

And in case I am not the only one who wanted to know the definition of Diode: In electronics, a diode is a two-terminal electronic component that conducts electric current in only one direction.