2024 Frontier OPEN Finalists Part Three: Chennelle Channer, Lee Pelletier, Justin Rigamonti
Our last installment of finalist bring us three poets intimately engaging with language, but not always in the ways you’d expect. Starting with Chennelle Channer’s poem, “Talkin With My Hands These Ain’t Gang Signs,” we find ourselves thrust into Channer’s rhythmic, tight drumbeat of a poem, which seamlessly blends tough and tender. Safety isn’t guaranteed in the world that Channer is describing, but the people who survive are the ones who take care of each other. The memories woven into this poem are difficult to access, but Channer doesn’t pull away, even when it hurts.
If Channer is telling us a story, Lee Pelletier is shouting with a megaphone. She has a humor that blends seamlessly with the philosophers she name drops—even the title of her poem, “I want to write a poem where Plato fights Zarathustra,” shows her specific brand of humor. She’s not deifying these thinkers, and Nietzsche, Freud, and Socrates all make an appearance. Pelletier spears these old men with razor sharp accuracy as she argues for autonomy for women’s bodies. Her language unspools into a wild and suggestive place, where Channer’s carefully prepared us, a progression that mimics school in the way it builds on the concepts we know and brings us more with each new piece of the puzzle.
Justin Rigamonti closes us out. Perhaps it’s a strange choice to use a poem titled “Failure,” to end this series where we’ve highlighted our 2024 Frontier OPEN finalists. But Rigamonti’s poem has a tone and calm and control that feels like an end note. We’ve moved through many spaces as we’ve read all kinds of poems. Rigamonti’s poem is intimate and quiet and it considers the nature of life, death, illness, and loss. And we are such selfish creatures, aren’t we? His poem leads us to consider our own lives, our own mortality. We’ve seen so much passion in the finalists as they’ve shared their work. Maybe it’s time for compassion instead. Such a small shift. Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s what we’ve been looking for.
TALKIN WITH MY HANDS THESE AIN’T GANG SIGNS
by Chennelle Channer
for Ermias, Kirsnick, Rakim Hasheem et. Al
Saturday I tie the laces up, throw ‘em over my shoulder
for safe passage. Toss ‘em high till they walk the wire,
I know you were here. I’m a pinky finger twister now,
I hold your daughter with my good hand. The left ones
bullet proof, the left ones tungsten. It’s grab the skillet
without a mitt tough. I use it to keep her Bratz safe,
I use it to make holes in the wall everytime a car backfires.
Sunday I’m closed fist mad, I hold my hand out anyway.
There’s construction by the old school, I wrote your name
in the cement, palmed the imprint like it knew the new me,
then surrendered.
I’m touching the sky, I’m touching the sky.
I want to write a poem where Plato fights Zarathustra
and slams his two front teeth to chip the shadow-wall.
You know the women Plato slept with were smarter than him.
manipulator, well, hun, now find the clit?
Crusty, dusty, musty ass old man philosopher.
Zarathustra loving a tight rope, tight rope
bodice bdsm little bitch. Watch a man talk of life,
feeling piece of shit. That’s Nietzsche shit.
Let’s throw Freud in there as well.
he explains over a woman’s few seconds of’
entitlement. A woman’s own body, own soul
Idaho whose damage is done in years of a girl’s
life and, therefore, acceptable. Baby gets a
electric kick, a need to frenzy a life.
Little girls deserve their own ownership.
doesn’t register beyond our eyelids,
and when they kill us, they don’t even look
podium, soapbox acropolis. Get a huge endorsement.
Kill us with a baby. Kill us with their theories
Zarathustra’s fist. While the men swell and grit their teeth.
While they profess. While they fight to make us meek.
The bee wasn’t broken.
Just dying. Just turning circles
in the sand like it was missing
a wheel. Like it was trying to
get somewhere over and over
and failing. Because to truly fail
you must try very hard. The geometry
of failure is always inspirational
at first: the thrill of it, trying
to catch your breath when
you can’t quite. Aunt Diane said
watching you die was like
watching someone reach for a rope
and miss, over and over.
The long breath you needed
was a few inches too far. As for the bee,
I couldn’t say what it was reaching for.
One old drone far from its hive,
an insignificant loss. But for the bee,
the loss was total. Everything
must go: body, self, every dirty
grain of sand. I lifted the bee
from its sad carousel and set it
on the log where it died, and that act—
neither kind nor good—was what
I would have done for you:
lift your eyes to where they
tracked mine, where I knew
you could hear me. But I
was miles away. You knew
what was killing you, the only
way in which you were better
off than the bee. Your body
skeletal and heaving. I would have
laid my hand on your chest
and told you what you couldn’t
hear: to stay alive, I think, isn’t
success. And this isn’t failure.
Chennelle Channer is a graduate student at Dartmouth College in the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies (MALS) program with a concentration in creative writing. She is interested in written work around immigration, language, womanhood, and familial structures. Her work can be found in journals such as Bloodroot Lit. and Clamantis. Originally from Jamaica, she considers herself an island girl at heart and is still getting used to the New England weather. When she is not writing you can find her walking a path at Quechee Gorge and maybe taking a quick dip in the water if it’s not too cold.
Lee Pelletier is a poet from CT who likes to write about art, history, and feminism. She has been published in (or has work forthcoming from) Griffel, Ditch Life, and the Bangalore Review. She was an Honorable Mention for the Miami Book Fair’s Emerging Writers Fellowship.
Justin Rigamonti teaches English at Portland Community College and serves as the both Program Coordinator for PCC’s Carolyn Moore Writing Residency and the Poetry Coordinator for Chatter PDX. His poems have been recently published or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Buckman Journal, and New Ohio Review, and his poem “The Secret” was published in the anthology Poetry of Grief, Gratitude, and Reverence from Wisdom Publications.
