Welcome to Podium! Issue 10. Podium publishes exclusive work by students who have participated in an Unterberg Poetry Center workshop or class— from first-time to seasoned. At the end of each semester, instructors select either a novel excerpt, short story, poem or other work by one student from each class to showcase his/her work in Podium.

Explore the full issue here. Below is a poem by Helen Barnard, who also has a poem in the new issue of The New Republic.

Seaside Town
Helen Barnard

High summer. Flowers ricochet around tiny yards.
Colors stun. Bee balm and roses vie for most beautiful.
Houses crowd close together.

Hot streets, narrow in old part of town, close together.
Wider in new. Rickshaws. Bear-baiting. Maybe.

Wide beach at low tide. Coffee smells. Shells.
Boats out in the harbor, some working ones.
Sailboats punctuate a horizon, against breakwater.

Break of day, high clouds, wind comes up at noon.
Dies in the evening, but late, as people walk home.

Walking home in a crowd, not with anyone.
Thinking of my life and how I have partially wasted it.
I am not Rilke. He said it with such excitement.

What is the point of being excited here?
The tide pulls this way and that. I am what I am.

I’d like to both spring forward and fall back.
Like the grey-shingled houses, I’m weathered.
Like the running dragon, I’m on my feet.

[Podium! Issue Number 10]

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