We are happy to announce that six poets have been shortlisted for Cha‘s “Addiction” Poetry Contest. The results will be announced in Issue 33 of the journal, due out in late September 2016. [See other shortlisted poems.]

Meg Eden’s “Buru-sera”

MEG ON “BURU-SERA”

When I learned about the buru-sera addiction, I tried to understand what the appeal was—and why grown men would find hope and arousal in children’s clothing. So I wrote a poem. When I don’t understand something, when I think something is inhuman or bizarre, I try to write a poem so I can inhabit that perspective briefly–and though I may still find the practice disturbing, I can understand the humanness that invokes and abides in that experience. The word orchestra became a critical turning point for me, as I thought of the Japanese word karaoke, which literally means “empty orchestra.” An orchestra is filled when a voice is added. We are all trying to fill a certain emptiness in us. How we choose to provide that voice for fullness varies.

ABOUT MEG

Meg Eden’s work has been published in various magazines, including Rattle, Drunken Boat, Poet Lore, and Gargoyle. She teaches at the University of Maryland. She has four poetry chapbooks, and her novel Post-High School Reality Quest is forthcoming from California Coldblood, an imprint of Rare Bird Lit. Check out her work at: www.megedenbooks.com