James Penha appeared in Issues 15 and 23 with three poems that move from cosmic distance toward night, exile, kinship, and the act of finding a place inside language.
James Penha in the historical archive
historical contributor notes place Penha in Indonesia, where he taught at the Jakarta International School. The earlier note also records fiction in Columbia, poems in Thema, and a Pudding House chapbook in its “Greatest Hits” series.
Bright Stars
The Issue 15 poem listens for a “Word” capable of locating the speaker among stars, leaves, and the diminishing remainder of what is left. The page becomes a temporary coordinate inside a universe whose bright stars keep expanding away.
Full Stop
Issue 23’s Full Stop opens under the pressure of night and proceeds through a sequence of curses directed at sunrise, birds, games, conquest, construction, success, rhythm, rhyme, and the coming day. Repetition gives the poem the force of a litany while darkness becomes both refuge and sentence.
Hemispheres
Hemispheres compresses geographical and emotional distance into a few lines about a brother who loves the idea of the speaker across another world. The poem’s brevity lets physical separation and imagined relation occupy the same space.
Distance, page, and address
Across the three poems, Penha repeatedly places the speaker at a distance: from stars, from daylight, from family, from home. The page becomes a site where that distance can be named and briefly held.
Further reading
Continue with Issue 23, the archive’s guide to sound in poetry, and its overview of modern poetry.