Zachary Kluckman
​Image by Engin Akyurt on Pexels                                                                                          
Zachary Kluckman, the National Poetry Awards 2014 Slam Artist of the Year, is a Pushcart Prize nominee, Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Gold Medal Poetry Teacher and a founding organizer of the 100 Thousand Poets for Change program. Kluckman, who tours the nation as a spoken word artist, was recently one of three American poets invited to the Kistrech International Poetry Festival in Kenya. A 2021 Thomas Lux scholar, Kluckman is the Founder and Slam Manager of MindWell Poetry and has authored three poetry collections, The Animals in Our Flesh, (Red Mountain Press) and Some of It is Muscle, (Swimming with Elephants Publications) as well as the forthcoming Rearview Funhouse. You can find him on Facebook under Zachary Kluckman and on Instagram as @physicalpoet.

In Which Grief Sets Me on Fire 

as the burning leaves                 my body  
              i am torn           between the urge to laugh  
and scream         the letters of her name  
               not the name itself        pain a forever season  
in which the trees            cacophony  
              greets the humble ear        in its weary silence  
with reprieve                  what is pain  
but the nerves’ brilliance                           at storytelling  
a mute reminder             the dulling ache 
                            of embers  
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