Tag Archives: Chanel Brenner

CPR Volume 21, Issue 1

Clear Cut
by Chanel Brenner

Leave a comment

It falls from my binder,
cherry crayon streaks
ripen in sun, LOVE RILEY—

a valentine from my son,
three weeks before he died,

cutout paper once a tree,
before its felling,
and reduction to pulp.

I pick up the heart,
hold it like a seed I’ll save

to grow an oak.
I couldn’t answer
his question,

Mommy, does paper
remember being a tree?

 

Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 21, Issue 1.

Chanel BrennerChanel Brenner is the author of Vanilla Milk: a memoir told in poems, (Silver Birch Press, 2014), which was a finalist for the 2016 Independent Book Awards and honorable mention in the 2014 Eric Hoffer awards. Her poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, Muzzle Magazine, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Spry Literary Journal, Barrow Street, Salamander, and others. Her poem, “July 28th, 2012” won first prize in The Write Place At the Write Time’s contest, judged by Ellen Bass.

See all items about Chanel Brenner

Visit Chanel Brenner’s contributors page.

CPR Volume 20, Issue 3

When My Yoga Teacher Tells Me I’m Vata Deranged
by Chanel Brenner

Leave a comment

I can think of worse things.
It’s windy in your head, she says,
but I like the soughing in my mind.
Thoughts blow through me like clouds.
Words loft like plastic bags, swirling
along my shoreline, then settling.

My sister’s having a baby,
I need to buy more vanilla milk,
breeze through me like a samoon.
Does my dead son climb trees in heaven?

The squall in my head
knocks down memory lines,
fractures and uproots grief,
wrenches time from its hinges.

Tranquility is overrated,
stillness weak.
I dive, tumble, then soar on my gritty, muscular wind.

 

Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 20, Issue 3.

Chanel BrennerChanel Brenner is the author of Vanilla Milk: a memoir told in poems, (Silver Birch Press, 2014), which was a finalist for the 2016 Independent Book Awards and honorable mention in the 2014 Eric Hoffer awards. Her poems have appeared in New Ohio Review, Poet Lore, Rattle, Muzzle Magazine, Pittsburgh Poetry Review, Spry Literary Journal, Barrow Street, Salamander, and others. Her poem, “July 28th, 2012” won first prize in The Write Place At the Write Time’s contest, judged by Ellen Bass.

See all items about Chanel Brenner

Visit Chanel Brenner’s contributors page.