VIOLETA GARCIA-MENDOZA—"SOLASTALGIA NOCTURNE" (Issue 29)

Sugar House Review · Violeta Garcia-Mendoza's, "Solastalgia Nocturne"

SOLASTALGIA NOCTURNE

It’s late spring & earlier I overfilled the bird feeders

while thinking about karma, anticipating hungry

wildlife, insomnia. Each night’s its own soft throat

& lying awake I distract myself from past selves

by playing catch & release with Ring doorbell alerts.

In the driveway: deer, red fox, raccoons

slipping between arborvitae & basketball hoop.

In the distance, lightning ironworks the sky:

decades of rooflines, centuries of oaks. Everything

is temporary is a kind of curse where existence stirs

like weather, where survival plots in terms of forage,

tunnel, shelter. These hours, I’m sorry to be human

with our trademark cornering factors; I know

every apology creates its own future problems.

The night animals feed, then pixelate

back into the screen’s consolation wild.

ABOUT THE POET 

Violeta Garcia-Mendoza is a Spanish-American poet, teacher, and suburban 

wildlife photographer. Her poetry has appeared in numerous literary journals, 

and in 2022, she received a grant from the Sustainable Arts Foundation. She is 

a member of the Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops at Carlow 

University. Violeta lives with her husband, teenage children, and pack of rescue 

dogs on a small-certified wildlife habitat in western Pennsylvania. Songs for the 

Land-Bound is her debut collection, out from June Road Press in 2024. VioletaGarciaMendoza.com

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

ERICA DAWSON—"SONNET AFTER AUTOCORRECT TURNS WHY DO YOU LIVE SO FAR AWAY TO WHY DO YOU LOVE SO FAR AWAY" (Issue 29)

Sugar House Review · Erica Dawson's, "Sonnet after autocorrect turns why do you live so far away to why do you love so far away"

Sonnet after autocorrect turns why do you live so far away? to why do you love so far away?

i love at close range. you leave room for myth,

ancient rock formations, riddles, the changing width

of oceans at high tide. i cannot touch,

in my memory, your taste or feel you such

as one feels their own shadow’s crouch. [distance,

you have failed me.] i haven’t seen you since

you left my bed. my heart has not yet grown

fonder or hardened into fist-sized stone.

it’s still an instrument of life, a beat

and then a beat. in the atria grooves

you must acquire how to love me. ride

your vanishing. i’m the fixed one who moves

in place. picture my face on our night street

rinsed clean at dawn. then love. love then abide.

ABOUT THE POET 

Erica Dawson is a neurodivergent African-American poet living in the

Baltimore-DC area. She is the author of three books of poetry, most recently, 

When Rap Spoke Straight to God (Tin House, 2018). Her poems have appeared 

in Best American Poetry, Orion, The Believer, VQR, and other journals and 

anthologies. She loves her dog Stella, Wu-Tang Clan, and anything cooked with 

cardamom.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

MICHAEL CHANG—"执迷不悔 UNREPENTANT" (Issue 28)

Sugar House Review · Michael Chang's, "执迷不悔 Unrepentant"

UNREPENTANT 

What can I do but shine / in memory 

—John Wieners 

● 

racing down a beach may reap uncommon rewards 

a simple gift, one a ghost could give 

when all’s said & done, what have we got left 

ghost nuts, a whole wad 

[something to share] 

ur breath on my chest 

AG standing for “aspiring governor” 

u will surely hate growing old 

the constant yelping in the yard 

followed by extended periods of pain 

my mood depending upon the fireworks 

i derive no pleasure from fantasies 

indecent lips, carnal skin 

unwholesome, vulgar 

buggers to be awoken 

ppl who disappear into side streets w/o warning 

& never look back 

on a day like today 

remind me how the sunroom filled w/ ferns 

over our protestations 

the trip to echo park being unnecessary 

it was the first good party of the season [some say the only] 

baubles & balls 

snow that keeps melting 

after u shake it off 

three bees on a shield 

shiny headgear lifted from a learned man 

reciting the dimensions of a dream

ABOUT THE POET 

Michael Chang (they/them) is the author of Almanac of Useless Talents 

(CLASH Books, 2022) and Synthetic Jungle (Northwestern University Press, 

2023). Tapped to edit Lambda Literary's Emerge anthology, their poems have 

been nominated for Best New Poets, Best of the Net, and the Pushcart Prize. 

They were awarded the Poetry Project's Brannan Prize & edit poetry at Fence.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

J.P. DANCING BEAR—"TRAP TEOP TRAP FLOW" (Issue 28)

Sugar House Review · J. P. Dancing Bear's, "Trap Teop Trap Flow"

TRAP TEOP TRAP FLOW

for Ruth Awad 

Today on your birthday, 

I told several people seeking advice 

to read your work. Not because, 

but because I didn't know, at the time, 

it being your anniversary howl. 

My people dreamed of stately swans 

floating across dreamcatcher 

ponds who were themselves ancient people. 

When I was a child, a bear came to me, 

and in my sleep it nudged me awake, 

and breathed into my mouth. Now I confess 

my words, my words, my tongue are hers. 

She still comes in between worlds, comes 

and looks down at me, much as you do, 

in that photo, the one where behind 

you, on swan-white paper, float the words, 

traP 

teoP 

traP 

floW 

Yes. It is the look of one who knows 

this world is a forest trail, cutting, 

winding its way down to water, down 

to a face made of tears.

ABOUT THE POET 

J.P. Dancing Bear is editor of Verse Daily. He is the author of sixteen 

collections of poetry, most recently, Of Oracles and Monsters (Glass Lyre 

Press, 2020), and Fish Singing Foxes (Salmon Poetry, 2019). His work has 

appeared in hundreds of venues.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.

SETH HAGEN—"ONE OF US" (Issue 28)

Sugar House Review · Seth Hagen's, "One of Us"

ONE OF US

One of us is drunk, and one of us is lying–

if love is a temple, it’s got spiders and a curse. 

Maybe we won’t work it out, but we’re trying. 

Us still swims luminous in my mind, 

an embryo in its egg, candled and obscure— 

O.K., one of us is drunk, and one of us is lying. 

You said, “Hold that thought. I’m buying,” 

pleated a twenty you plucked from your purse. 

Were we working it out? Were we even trying? 

You swung on the surface in the glass of wine. 

“I remember our first bed. Now there are no more firsts.” 

Someone must be drunk. Someone must be lying. 

You asked me if love was just crust, salt rime 

on rock when the lies burned off from lust– 

so maybe we won’t work it out, but I’m trying. 

Let us kneel to its Form in faith or in science: the

voice of a virgin, black holes, a fifth force 

What if one of us is drunk and one of us lying? 

Maybe we won’t work it out, but love is trying.

ABOUT THE POET 

Seth Hagen has works forthcoming in DIAGRAM. He has published in the fields 

of literary study and tax law. He lives in Atlanta, GA, where he teaches English.

ABOUT SUGAR HOUSE REVIEW 

We loved reading the work that we’ve published (clearly), and we want an 

opportunity to better hear our contributors. We're featuring audio recordings of 

poems from our pages, read by the poet. This an open invitation to all contributors 

from any of our issues, we were delighted to print your work, now we’re eager to 

hear it.