Please join Synkroniciti in welcoming the first featured artist from our upcoming “Vulnerable” issue, Ohio poet Pamela R. Anderson. “The Anatomy of Loss” is a finalist in our “Vulnerable” poetry contest. It’s a humorous yet heart-breaking piece that stems from a bit of childhood wisdom lost in translation. “Bunnies die/ and so do puppies and kitties./ But bitches never die.// This was news to you because, in your experience,/ bitches die as often as everyone else but not/ as often as you might wish, and this is slippery territory…” Once the awkward mystery is solved, a simple misunderstanding, she wishes she could tell her father this story that happened in class–he would be so amused. “But he is gone. And bitches never die,/ but fathers do.” Pam’s poetry, gently metered and playing with the sound of words from a young mouth and mind, is disarming in its honesty and openness, bringing the synchronicity of the moment into full focus.
Read “The Anatomy of Loss” in Synkroniciti’s “Vulnerable” issue, available for pre-order here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Pamela R. Anderson is a traveler, blues music lover, yoga practitioner, and now-retired public radio fundraiser. A graduate of the Northeast Ohio Master of Fine Arts Program (NEOMFA), Pam is the author of three chapbooks, including Just the Girls: A Kaleidoscope of Butterflies; A Drift of Honeybees ( Poetry Box), Widow Maker (Finishing Line Press), and The Galloping Garbage Truck (Kelsay Books). When she is not writing or reading, you can find her hiking with her husband in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Pam has never owned a red bathing suit, nor has she ever seen an episode of Baywatch.