Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
Week 26: Scallion
born now = she has
an 80-90% chance
of survival =
breathing
without tubes
+ eventually +
< 5 weeks ago
= her odds =
0 = 32 years ago
= the year you
were born too =
a baby the size
of a carrot =
survived > 128 days
before air
should have
touched
his
unsprouted
bittergreen
skin.
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach (www.juliakolchinskydasbach.com) emigrated from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon and is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of The Many Names for Mother, winner the Wick Poetry Prize (Kent State University Press, 2019) and The Bear Who Ate the Stars (Split Lip Press, 2014). Her poems appear in POETRY, American Poetry Review, and TriQuarterly. Her work has been selected for Best New Poets, the Williams Carlos Williams University Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and New South’s Poetry Prize. Julia is the editor of Construction Magazine (www.constructionlitmag.com) and when not busy chasing her 3-year-old around Philly, she writes a blog about motherhood (https://otherwomendonttellyou.wordpress.com/).
Return to July 2019 Edition
born now = she has
an 80-90% chance
of survival =
breathing
without tubes
+ eventually +
< 5 weeks ago
= her odds =
0 = 32 years ago
= the year you
were born too =
a baby the size
of a carrot =
survived > 128 days
before air
should have
touched
his
unsprouted
bittergreen
skin.
Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach (www.juliakolchinskydasbach.com) emigrated from Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine as a Jewish refugee when she was six. She holds an MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon and is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of The Many Names for Mother, winner the Wick Poetry Prize (Kent State University Press, 2019) and The Bear Who Ate the Stars (Split Lip Press, 2014). Her poems appear in POETRY, American Poetry Review, and TriQuarterly. Her work has been selected for Best New Poets, the Williams Carlos Williams University Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and New South’s Poetry Prize. Julia is the editor of Construction Magazine (www.constructionlitmag.com) and when not busy chasing her 3-year-old around Philly, she writes a blog about motherhood (https://otherwomendonttellyou.wordpress.com/).
Return to July 2019 Edition