~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of February 2025 ~
Tag: Roseanne Freed
How Old Do You Feel? by Roseanne Freed
How Old Do You Feel?
How old do you feel?
she asked. What a stupid
question I thought.
I’d just turned fifty
and felt fifty.
Twenty years later
I still feel fifty, but when
I look in the mirror,
I don’t recognize
the one who looks at me.
When I first heard
about video phone calls,
I thought,
What a stupid idea.
Why would anyone
want to see the person
they’re talking to?
I’d have to brush my hair.
That was before
I discovered FaceTime,
and the joy of real-time
chats with grandchildren
in Canada,
and before your death
left me with unfixable
unbearable longing.
O to see you,
to hear your voice
even in a silent dreamtime.
When you left us
you were forty-one.
How old do you feel?
*
Roseanne Freed lives in Los Angeles. Poetry helped her survive Mahalia’s death so she knows it will help her survive the fires which surround her home in the San Fernando Valley. Her debut chap book “Your Name Is A Poem” published this summer by Picture Show Press, is available on amazon. She is honored to be a member of ONE ART’s poetry community.
ONE ART’s Top 25 Most-Read Poets of 2023
~ ONE ART’s Top 25 Most-Read Poets of 2023 ~
1. Abby E. Murray
2. Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
3. Betsy Mars
4. Donna Hilbert
5. Linda Laderman
6. Alison Luterman
7. Julie Weiss
8. Robbi Nester
9. Roseanne Freed
10. Karen Paul Holmes
11. Heather Swan
12. Timothy Green
13. James Diaz
14. Jane Edna Mohler
15. John Amen
16. Barbara Crooker
17. Jim Daniels
18. Susan Vespoli
19. Sean Kelbley
20. Susan Zimmerman
21. Kip Knott
22. Jennifer Garfield
23. Margaret Dornaus
24. Paula J. Lambert
25. Gail Thomas
ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of December 2023
~ ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of December 2023 ~
- Abby E. Murray – Three Poems
- Betsy Mars – Delivery
- Mick Cochrane – Dabbs Greer
- Roseanne Freed – My wet eyes stared into their lights
- James Diaz – Once More, Into The Light
- Linda Laderman – On Thanksgiving no one wants to hear poetry
- Dick Westheimer – CT Scan Assay
- Michelle Bitting – Poor Yorick
- Lynne Knight – Three Poems
- Karen Paul Holmes – Two Poems
My wet eyes stared into their lights by Roseanne Freed
My wet eyes stared into their lights
During our family FaceTime call
at Chanukah last year,
we lit the fifth day candles
on the menorah,
and my seven-year-old granddaughter,
the image of her late mother,
asked us,
Who misses Mama the most?
I’ve spent the whole year wondering
how to answer.
At a Shabbat dinner on Friday night
when the woman opposite me said,
Where are your children?
I could tell her my son lives in Canada.
But I don’t know where my daughter
is — she didn’t leave a forwarding address
when she left.
*
Roseanne Freed grew up in apartheid South Africa and now lives in Los Angeles, where she takes inner-city school children hiking in the Santa Monica mountains. A Best of the Net and a Pushcart nominee, her poems have appeared in ONE ART, MacQueens Quinterly, Naugatuck River Review, and Blue Heron Review among others.
I Mention the Unmentionable In the Yoga Class by Roseanne Freed
I Mention the Unmentionable In the Yoga Class
Inversions this evening,
said the male teacher
at the beginning of the yoga class,
Is anyone on their period?
I put up my hand.
Eight men and six women
turned round to stare,
I’ll give you different exercises.
My convent educated mother,
would be horrified to know
I’d told a roomful of strangers
I was a woman who menstruated.
Mom, who taught me to call my vagina,
my down there, and menstruation
by the Hindustani words mina minna,
was taught the facts of life
—a.k.a how babies are made—
by my father. On their wedding night.
I was so embarrassed, But he was kind,
Mom said, I learned fast.
I got pregnant on our honeymoon.
In the African town where I grew up.
Menstrual pads were wrapped
in brown paper
and hidden behind the counter.
Unable to mention the unmentionable,
I’d walk out the drug store
if served by a man.
*
Roseanne Freed grew up in apartheid South Africa and now lives with her husband in California. A Best of the Net nominee, her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in ONE ART, MacQueens Quinterly, Naugatuck River Review, and Blue Heron Review among others.
ONE ART’s Top 10 Most-Read Poets of February 2023
The Stranger by Roseanne Freed
The Stranger
At my mother’s funeral the rabbi asked,
Who wants to see the body before we close the coffin?
It was good to see her. Wrapped
in a white cloth, she looked peaceful,
like the nun she’d always wanted to be.
I even kissed her cold forehead.
To help us accept our daughter had died
I knew her father and I had to see her,
had to see the body.
We didn’t recognize the person
in the coffin, arms folded across her chest,
at our private viewing. Pain
deeply etched on this stranger’s
face, her cheeks fevered, and her belly
—oh god her belly — inflated
from the total bowel blockage
looked nine-months pregnant.
I hoped my husband didn’t notice.
We stared silently, suffocated
by the truth
of how much she’d suffered.
I touched her hand,
and kissed her cold forehead.
It didn’t comfort.
I don’t know how people take pictures
or cut off locks of hair
from their beloveds’ bodies.
I lit the candles on the table,
held my spouse’s hand,
and we both wept.
*
Poet Roseanne Freed was born in South Africa. After the death of her daughter she turned to poetry to help with her grief. Her poetry has been published in ONE ART, Verse-Virtual, and MacQueen’s Quinterly among others. She’s a Best of the Net 2022 nominee. She and her husband live in Los Angeles.
Exhibit ‘A’ by Roseanne Freed
Exhibit ‘A’
newly married
on our European Grand Tour—
six months in a VW van
during that long ago time
of Europe on $5 a day,
we go to the Black Forest
to visit the German family
we’d met camping in the Transkei,
and us two South African hippies
become Kurt’s exhibit ‘A’—
the Jewish friends.
*
Poet Roseanne Freed was born in South Africa. After the death of her daughter she turned to poetry to help with her grief. Her poetry has been published in ONE ART, Verse-Virtual, and MacQueen’s Quinterly among others. She’s a Best of the Net 2022 nominee. She and her husband live in Los Angeles.
A poem begins with a lump in the throat by Roseanne Freed
A poem begins with a lump in the throat
—after Robert Frost
Sunday will be six weeks
since our daughter died.
A date. Not a celebration.
My mouth eats without hunger.
My pillow forgets how to sleep.
Mail piles up on the table—
six issues of The New Yorker
lie unopened.
People of the Lakota tribe believe
a grieving person is holy
because we’re closer to the spirit world
and inhale a natural wisdom
with our sorrow.
I don’t feel holy,
or wise.
I put her pictures all over the house.
Her father calls them ghosts.
They comfort me.
*
Roseanne Freed was born in South Africa and now lives in Los Angeles. She loves hiking and shares her fascination for the natural world by leading school children on hikes in the Santa Monica Mountains. Her poetry has been published in Contrary Magazine, Verse-Virtual, and Blue Heron Review.