Synkroniciti is so pleased to welcome back Iowan poet Martha Sherick Shen, who won the “Vulnerable” poetry contest in our previous issue. “The past lives always among us” is not only a tribute to the best parts of tradition, but a blessing for the future. Martha creates this atmosphere by focusing on love and beauty, rather than the difficulties which have arisen, past and present. In Austria, she walks where Mozart walked and smells the bread baking as it has for centuries. Like the present, the past is never perfect, but there is a resilient embrace of goodness that continues to rescue us and keep us going. “Sometimes the old ways are sweet.// silently i bless the comfort they create.// at home, i smell my mother’s bread/ baking/ in my own oven./ i rise early to greet the/ sun just as she greeted the sun/ and her mother before her.” Martha’s visual presentation, with indentations and internal spacing, encourage us to savor the rich sensory imagery she brings us and to slow down and renew our human connections. The care taken with each word and image, delicate sibilants and alliteration, is both comforting and invigorating.
Read “The past lives always among us” in Synkroniciti’s “Belonging” issue, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Martha Sherick Shen is native to Iowa. Born into an academic family, she was labeled a slow learner years before dyslexia was understood. She did not read until she was 13 years old. Suddenly, reading became her world of wonder and writing became her expression. It was a private blossoming, however, since it did not change the way people saw her. After raising her daughters and divorcing, she earned a degree in Zoology from Iowa State University within a specialized program for Neuroscience and Physiological Psychology. She graduated with honors in 2003. During these years, Martha also met, befriended, and later married the man who would bring her a fairytale life, Sheldon Shen. She has written poetry privately throughout her life. Martha currently lives in Des Moines, Iowa with her daughter Abra’s family and her French Bulldog, Judah.