Поэзия Итана С. Эванса исследует конфликт телесной боли и экологического кризиса

Loving nature while also recently having a body that feels like it’s revolting against me led me to really appreciate ethan s. evans’ poetry featured in Terrain.org. The fragmentation and clash of natural and unnatural images hit especially hard when you’ve been in the throes of agony in a body that doesn’t seem to like you very much. This week’s recommended reading is ethan s. evans’ poem “fentanyl” where the poem’s structure and juxtaposition do as much heavy lifting as the words themselves. Sometimes nothing is more effective than the juxtaposition of the natural and the unnatural: “4000 miles south of us refrigerants tore a hole / in the stratosphere. / how fortunate to know at our latitude / the sun will not, / like some faceless other, burn us clean.” The poem’s shape and presentation contribute to its fragmented perspective, creating a series of images and moments that feel both connected and disjointed. Even the title carries weight. Fentanyl is a loaded word in contemporary culture, associated with addiction, overdose, and public fear. Yet fentanyl is also a painkiller. It relieves suffering. Evans’s poem quietly presses against that tension through what may be its central question: “if the body is built to hurt us / then why is pain’s negation / always a moral quandary.” Evans’s central question is made even more striking by the absence of a question mark. What appears to be a question is presented as a statement, suggesting not uncertainty but frustration, as though the speaker is naming a contradiction that already exists rather than seeking an answer to it. Rather than offering answers, the poem layers bodily pain, desire, environmental damage, intimacy, and vulnerability into a meditation on what we choose to fear, condemn, or accept. The result is unsettling, thought-provoking, and difficult to shake. Read the full poem at Terrain.org. They publish outstanding place-based, ad-free literature and more on a rolling basis. Interested in submitting to them? They 17th annual contests in poetry, fiction, and nonfiction are open through September 7! Recommended Reading, curated by Managing Editor Nicole Foor, is one of the many features included in the NewPages weekly newsletter. Subscribe to receive literary magazine highlights, new book releases, bookstore updates, writing prompts, and submission opportunities delivered straight to your inbox.