Congratulations to Rachel Fan for her poem “Drowning Lessons,” chosen by this year’s judge Jonie McIntire!
Jonie says: Drowning Lessons is saturated with language about the double bass, so rich with desire and a search for identity that you want to reread it, over and over, like music you feel in your bones. I love how raw and hungry it is, and how even the left/right justified spacing reflects the structure of practice. We set these limits, work and repeat within them, and we are freed by what we create. There’s an exploration of self here. An identity that the musical instrument has of its own, traces of ourselves left on its frame, and the relationship we form through practice with it. So many double-meanings in specific words that work to reinforce the richness of emotion but also bring us back to the bass… “honey” which is a type of double bass string but also harkens to the pine sap of sticky rosin and also the thick richness of sound; “our ribs” of a person but also of a bass; even “choke” when intense playing changes the sound from an instrument. This poem moves through questioning, discomfort, insecurity into resolve, dedication, obsession. “How can you wake in the middle of a life? We practice.” Delicious and complex!
Rachel is an 18-year-old poet from Shanghai, currently attending a boarding school in Connecticut. When not filling notebooks with verse, she likes to show off pictures of her concerningly overweight cat to anyone that pays attention.
Rachel has received national accolades for her poetry, including a Scholastic Art & Writing National Silver Medal and multiple Gold and Silver Keys. She was also the second-place winner out of 600 in the annual Nancy Thorp Poetry Contest. She has also published her work in nationally distributed literary journals such as Zone 3 Press, Cargoes, among others. She is currently working toward her debut poetry collection.