New Work by Jayne Benjulian

Two poems by Jayne Benjulian (poetry, ’13), “Sister” and “Peace’s Farm” appear online at The Ilanot Review:

Sister

She gives me holy hell when I trim Elvis’ whiskers. That’s how
they fit through things. Potatoes for breakfast & whatever else she
feels like eating, skinny, you’re falling away to a ton, ha ha, I total

the bike, Dr. Litvak cleans the pebbles from my knee, stitches the
skin closed over the bone, holy Mary mother of god, we’re Jewish
but that’s what we say, that’s what the Garibaldis say, holy Mary, 

…[Keep Reading]…

Jayne’s essay, “The Dramaturgy of Audience: Jayne Benjulian goes to the Theater as a Civilian,” appears at HowlRound:

The last time I wrote for HowlRound, in October 2011, I was director of new play development at a theater. Since then, I have turned to the work of solitary writing. I have been in a kind of self-imposed exile learning again to write poetry, earning an MFA and assembling a manuscript of poems. Recently, after lunch with a mentor, I found myself in Philadelphia with nothing to do and no one to call. I bought a ticket to the Wilma Theater—and I emphasize that I paid for a theater ticket. I was too shy and too reluctant to call in favors for an industry ticket. And then, it dawned on me that I was presented with a gift: I might go to the theater as a civilian and see what it was like …[Keep Reading]…

Eleanor Wilner and Jayne Benjulian in Spillway

Poems by faculty member Eleanor Wilner and alumna Jayne Benjulian (poetry, ’13) appear in the June issue of Spillway.

Eleanor’s poem is “Tracking” and Jayne’s poem is “Fault Lines”

Fault Lines

 

I stand on the shore of Long Island Sound,
east, my parents say, you can see Europe.

Somewhere between Madrid and Barcelona
my tongue touched the Castilian c,

the French r has to do with air
slipped behind a glottal stop

not quite stopped,

Russian consonants crash—

                                                 zdraftsvicha, dacha—

like continents,
time lifts at the fault lines,

splits the ground we knew,
impassible: walk through.

 

Reading Announcement

Jayne Benjulian (Poetry ’13) and Rebecca Foust (Poetry ’10) will read at Why There Are Words in Sausalito Thursday, April 11, at 7 PM.

Jayne Benjulian

Rebecca Foust

The Why There Are Words Series is curated by Peg Alford Pursell (Fiction ’96).  For details visit whytherearewords.com