HAN VANDERHART — "ODE TO KNOWING" (Issue 30)

Sugar House Review · Han VanderHart's, "Ode to Knowing"

ODE TO KNOWING

The orchard in my childhood: apple,

pear, cherry I fell from—and a plum tree

neglected every spring, a jelly fungus

taking the purple fruit. No soft plums

in the fridge. There was so much

I thought I could not have; obedience

I had to give. My child body, bruised.

My heart: kept like an abandoned fruit

tree, or a goat to a tether. I did not buck.

I did not bite. I stood in the long grasses.

I’ve since learned that a child cannot

provide. That fruit and animals both

need tending hands—hold me, comb me,

were words that for years I could not

say. But now I feel the wisteria around

my thighs. The landscape curls with relief.

There is ripe fruit in the shape of your mouth.

ABOUT THE POET 

Han VanderHart is a queer writer living in Durham, NC, under the pines. Their 

second poetry collection, Larks (Ohio University Press, 2025), was selected by 

Chanda Feldman as winner of the 2024 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize. Han is also 

the author of What Pecan Light (Bull City Press, 2021) and has essays and poetry 

published in Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, The Rumpus, AGNI, 

and elsewhere. Han hosts Of Poetry Podcast and, alongside Amorak Huey, coedits 

the poetry press River River Books.

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.

ELLA FLORES — "FIELD NOTES FROM THE CREATION MUSEUM" (Issue 30)

Sugar House Review · Ella Flores's, "Field Notes from the Creation Museum"

FIELD NOTES FROM THE CREATION MUSEUM

After the Tower of Babel diorama

    you arrive at a Kentucky nuclear

wasteland where mannequin Moses

    asks mannequin David, Why do I

suffer? A projector whirs the answer:

    a million CGI particles form a fully

adult, human male—No baby Adam.

    No diaper changing station

in the men’s bathroom. No stopping the field

    tripping students from prodding fertilized

egg models and life-sized fetuses. Or shoving

    their way through the Garden of Eden

exhibit to be first in line for the petting-zoo-food-

    court-equipped Ark, where a premium ticket

gets you the Deluge Experience and rainbows

    are kept to a minimum. Please leave

in twos, a placard points to the gift shop.

    In the humor section you buy a birthday

card with a unicorn nuzzling a brontosaurus

telling him, It doesn’t hurt.

Not really.

ABOUT THE POET 

Ella Flores is a poetry PhD candidate at SUNY Binghamton and has recent 

or forthcoming work in The Penn Review, DIAGRAM, Salamander, Hunger 

Mountain, and others.

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.

MIKE WHITE — "FAIRGROUND (OLD PHOTOGRAPH)" (Issue 30)

Sugar House Review · Mike White's, "Fairground (Old Photograph)"

FAIRGROUND (OLD PHOTOGRAPH) 

Given that the colors

must already be

imagined,

allow the mind’s eye

to erase

every last bobbing balloon,

and then subtract

the levitating strings.

Now keep

squarely in view

the clenched raised fists

of the stone-faced children.

ABOUT THE POET 

Mike White is the author of two prize-winning collections: How to Make a 

Bird with Two Hands (Word Works, 2012) and Addendum to a Miracle 

(Waywiser, 2017). Individual poems have appeared in journals, including Poetry, 

Ploughshares, The New Republic, The Yale Review, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa 

Review, Copper Nickel, Rattle, and previously in Sugar House Review. Originally 

from Canada, he now lives in Salt Lake City and teaches at the University of Utah.

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.