Synkroniciti is excited to welcome Texan writer and poet Ken Farrell with “American Heritage, 1987,” an unflinching poetic examination of the effect of family violence, abuse and torment on an adolescent and, by extension, the community surrounding him. We are proud to count it as one of the finalists for our “Family” poetry contest. This poem takes us inside the mind of a middle school boy who beats a bully senseless, pounding his head repeatedly against the concrete just outside the school doors. “The office ladies watch/ me watching the paramedics as/ they rush, kneel, seeking him that I/ beat: he’s not there—” We recoil in horror at the young man’s actions and his lack of remorse, until we ascertain their source: “I hate my father. He shouldn’t/ have touched me: I can’t tell.” The narrow visual form and terse nature of the poem, with proper names redacted, serve to communicate the intense pressure this young man feels. Our schools are not able to contain or diffuse the chaos bubbling out of homes rancid with toxic masculinity. This nameless boy is one of many; this school could be in your town or mine. Ken deftly divulges the numbness that accompanies trauma and the paradox that those who harm others are the most powerless. He does not tell us, he shows us.
Read “American Heritage, 1987” in our “Family” issue, available at https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/. We are pleased to announce that we will be featuring another of Ken’s poems in our upcoming “Haunting” issue next fall.
Ken Farrell’s poetry and fiction is forthcoming or published in various anthologies and in journals such as Pilgrimage, Book of Matches, Watershed Review, Coffin Bell, and Panoply. Ken holds an MFA from Texas State University and an MA from Salisbury University, and he has earned a living as an adjunct, cage fighter, pizzaiolo, and warehouseman. Responding to his daughter’s challenge, Ken is currently writing his first novel, a tale about a world where ghosts are jurors, the sky is off limits, and shards of souls are commodities.