2023 Ekphrastic Poetry Prize Second Place Winner: “Tokyo Prepartum” by Olga Maslova
It’s time to congratulate Frontier Poetry‘s Ekphrastic Poetry Prize Second Place winner, Olga Maslova. Dive into her impeccable poem, selected by guest judge Steve Bellin-Oka, “Tokyo Prepartum.”
In this poem, Maslova effortlessly connects the narrative with the lyrical while keeping the reader so intimately close to the words.
Please note: this poem depicts themes of depression, suicide, and bodily harm.
Tokyo Prepartum
To Jusaburo Tsujimura, with gratitude
Then there was the bad weather
Except here, in Tokyo, it wasn’t
The windows were still wide open
the rain mild, maple leaves clung to the trees
A faint smell of burning wood everywhere
I went by myself to see a movie, at its opening credits
54 schoolgirls stood on a platform
during the usual afternoon rush at Shinjuku station
The girls held hands, looked ahead, and on the count of three
jumped together:
A giant wave of blood, horror, screeching brakes, blackout
I was pregnant, first months, strong and happy
basking in the colorless light of late October
It changed overnight,
like the weather in a Hemingway’s novel
I stopped going out
In the middle of that fluorescent autumn
I cocooned myself in the bedroom,
straining to hold off the approaching darkness
the way the shocked subway car driver in the movie
was pushing the brakes at the Shinjuku Station
* * * * * *
A colleague’s brother jumped from a balcony in Paris
after finally getting the job he had always wanted
* * * * * *
The first snow fell on December 2nd
I took a train with three changeovers to the suburbs
to the basement of Takashimaya
for a Jusaburo Tsujimura exhibit
a famous puppet maker: dollhouse-sized scenes
from The Tale of Genji. There
pink and orange fabric bunnies
hopped among visitors, making a ruckus
Instead of koto and shakuhachi
the background music was French, Piaf and Dalida
lamenting the loss of love, new love, rain over Paris
In the store’s rooftop café, I sat by the window
sharing a table with a green polka-dot rabbit
While the waiter took his time bringing the order
I looked out at the falling snow and breathed deeply:
I was again a child
tasting this planet’s air
for the first time
while a child growing inside me
had finally loosened its grip
on the heart valve
The prix fixe meal was the canon in Tokyo back then,
appetizer, main course, dessert, espresso
My favorite was always the amuse bouche−
a small pebble that can stop the train
before it reaches the Shinjuku Station
Note from the poet:
Prenatal Depression affects 5 % of all pregnant women, especially in the first trimester. It can be so severe that can cause women to harm themselves or their unborn baby
Olga Maslova
Olga Maslova is a Ukrainian-American writer and theater designer. Born and raised in Kharkiv, Ukraine, she holds a BFA in directing from Ukraine, an MFA in dramaturgy from SUNY at Stony Brook, and an MFA in costume and set design from NYU, and she is a 2021/2022 Fulbright Fellow. Olga is the librettist of several large-scale vocal works: an opera, Black Square, an oratorio, The Last Day of the Eternal City, an art song cycle, Venetian Cycle. Olga’s poetry has appeared and is forthcoming in New Ohio Review, New American Writing, Plume Poetry, The Coachella Review, Strange Horizons, ONE ART, Passengers, and others. Back in Ukraine, Olga worked as a metal turner of the 3rd rank, a theatre instructor and acting coach at the Kharkiv Juvenile Detention Center for Girls, and a theatre instructor in one of the first Russian Waldorf schools. She now teaches costume design at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, https://olgamaslova.com/
