‘Black, White, Read All Over’ & ‘Wasted Ink’
Ms. Jenn is a poet, storyteller, and emerging photographer. Her work bridges language and imagery, exploring resilience, motherhood, and the space between reality and imagination. Drawn to windows, reflections, and shifting horizons, she captures what lingers unseen in everyday moments. Through both words and lens, she transforms the ordinary into metaphor, offering art that feels intimate yet universally alive.
Black, White, Read All Over
Today’s edition lies in state on a park bench, shamelessly spread out
to tease the hurried voyeurs. The siren call of the salacious headline
is always enough to catch someone. Eyes rush through typeface like
skipping stones, the syllables singing the chorus of modern tragedy:
the plague, the war, the coup, your team that didn’t make it into the
playoffs, the one more death of a child in your neighbourhood. Did
you not hear the shots? Or was the radio too loud? How could you
sleep — the wind turns the beginnings of this week’s stock market
crash into gray wings, a fighter jet on a mission to bomb a new victim.
Wasted Ink
You say you feel as if you betray your craft
if you accept these easy lines
as art
because it’s not like your obfuscating dissertation.
It takes blood.
What is this hatred of poetry? What is this hatred of the self?
That every poem must torment you like a lover
teasing and taunting,
that imagined laughter in your direction
the ones who always get away (they all do).
I am meant to be sorry that I let them all understand me
rather than leaving those dusty hieroglyphics
which only you could crack
because you were just my type.
Poetry has to take an emotional toll, you tell me.
It’s not enough
until you beat her
and see those inky black tears.
You’re not allowed to provide closure
if it’s the wrong kind.
Fiona Hartmann is a writer living in Toronto, Canada. She is interested in creating thought-provoking fiction that creates emotional connections that transcend through the digital landscape of modernity. Find her published and forthcoming work in Kelp Journal, Shot Glass Journal, Neologism Poetry Journal and elsewhere.
