ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Nicholas Reiner is a Latino poet from Southern California. He holds degrees from Stanford University and the University of California, Irvine, where he completed an MFA. His work appears or is forthcoming in Spillway, B O D Y, and Connotation Press and he has been a scholarship resident at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. He lives in Santa Monica, CA with his wife.
Also by Nicholas Reiner:
Contingencies
Holding Coins
Watching A Computer Animation of the Los Angeles Fire 3 Helicopter Crash
Santa Clara County Juvenile Hall, At 15
is to be alone in a cell
to be in a dark cell, to be dark, in a cell
alone in the dark
of the cell, to be young in a cell
so to be young & alone & dark
in a cell is to be lost alive
in a cell, to sleep in a cell
to dream, to wake in a cell
to wish for pozole
or something
outside the hall,
outside the cell.
The poem expresses a wish that we don't lock young people up in the ways that we do. In California, so many young brown people come into early contact with the carceral state. This poem is interested in the repetitive, disorienting nature of those interactions. It is borne out of my experience working with young writers at a particular facility in San Jose, CA.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
