Andrena Zawinski
Andrena Zawinski is the author of multiple poetry and short story books. Her first poetry book, Traveling in Reflected Light, was a Kenneth Patchen Competition winner. Her books Something About, Landings, Born Under the Influence, and Plumes & Other Flights of Fancy Flash Fiction, have all received amazing feedback and won awards such as, the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. Her individual poems are also greatly applauded, with them appearing in Quarterly West, Gulf Coast, Nimrod, Slipstream, Rattle, Many Mountains Moving, Pacific Review, Psychological Perspectives Journal of Jungian Thought, The Progressive Magazine and numerous others. Zawinski also founded the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and became the editor for Turning a Train of Thought Upside Down, an anthology they released. Visit their website.
Review of Zawinski's work by Associate Editor, Taylor Sutton
When I read poetry I always end up looking intently at the author’s word play and word usage. I always love when an author is creative and uses word play to truly enhance the story. Andrena Zawinski’s wording in her poems stuck out to me immediately. Her imagery and ability to make the reader feel that they are in the poem feeling the emotion with the characters made me fall in love with her work immediately. I instantly felt connected to the characters in the poem. I felt their every emotion and their intent behind every action with Zawinski’s ability to bring the poem to life. Every twist and turn in her work is so perfectly detailed and thought out that the reader can’t help but be impressed.
Read a sample of work from WR Vol. 19, "Empathy and Entropy" below.
Three’s A Crowd
He slams down a bargain bouquet
on the checkout conveyor belt
broadcasts it’s the third time
this month she kicked him out,
this urban cowboy sporting
an anchor beard and black stetson
leaning into the, muttering
he forgot his ring last night.
Fourth deep in line, arms brimming
with a New Year’s resolution in celery,
carrots, kale, Lucky Supermarket’s
“3’s a Crowd” banner flags above heads.
She scans the scandal rag rack for
the latest celebrity downward spirals
down laws, hoping for a new line to open.
Then those Snickers, nearly forfeiting her
fitness pledge.
He stretches past her for a Coke and
Mentos, pushes nearly spent blooms up
against her produce, asks what she thinks
about jealousy. She announces she is no
Dear Abby of the Checkout, eyes his sad
bouquet, then advises he go for Godivas
and Mum. He flips through Cosmos’ “Ten
Sexy Tips for Bedroom Bliss.”
On the way home, her sister Rosie
phones whining about her boy-
friend, the latest with the live-aboard
sloop, complaining he was out all night,
star-studded promise ring in the soap
dish swears his roses won’t fix this one,
not even dancing barefoot onboard
the Bronco’s slick deck, in her arms her
cowboy with a sailboat, then cute the
connection.
Just then he lets himself into the
apartment, cellophane wrapped
roses in hand, neon clearance tag still
affixed. She plunges them headfirst
down the Insinlerator, petals flying
up against her flushed cheeks, shoves
him out the door, yelling: “The third
and last time this month,” jamming a
chair under the knob.
Digging through her cedar Hope Chest
turned giant junk drawer, she swaddles
herself inside a crazy quilt grandma
made celebrating graduations and
great jobs, all those weddings and
births. Breathing in the long woody
scent fixed in it, she flops onto the bed,
thinking three times really is a charm,
the crack and smack of thorny roses
still spinning inside the disposal drain,
the whir of them a deliriously wild and
final beautiful noise.