"The Gulf of Maine" and "Wind and Waves"

New Poetry from The Metropolitan Review

Claude Monet, Impression, soleil levant, 1872, Oil on canvas

We at The Metropolitan Review are very excited for our second dispatch of poetry. These poems highlight the paradoxical nature of the way waves can shape our relationship to the Earth, ourselves, and each other. As summer stretches to its hottest point, the water can offer respite or tragedy, much like longing and love. Poets Mari Pack and Buku Sarkar use language to create an evocative experience, looking at the waves to see what they hold while there is still time.

—The Editors

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The Gulf of Maine

is too cold to be heartbreaking,                                                                                             but contains within it                                                                                                                   a kind of dreadful dreamscape,                                                                                      impossible to access

all the years my friend lived                                                                                                        in her lobster town. When                                                                                                       we finally got interested in the Atlantic,                                                                         
every night changed.

My wish to be naked expanded                                                                                             like a flower and my will                                                                                               diminished. A nightmare is nothing                                                                                       to fear, but a dream foretells

the end of something. According                                                                                              to scientists, galaxies do not move                                                                                 through space but rather with space                                                                                       as it expands. How infuriating

to arrive at original thought                                                                                           through theory. One should arrive                                                                             anywhere through nautical imagery.                                                                                 Water triggers my desire

for violence, my inability                                                                                                          to remain calm for even a single                                                                                    second. Lo, the death skiff is calling.                                                                                    Let us leave this all behind.

Mari Pack is a writer living outside Philly. Her poems have been published in Poetry International, Brooklyn Poets, and Pigeon Pages. She was nominated for a 2024 Best of the Net.

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Wind and Waves

Just as the wind leaves                                                                                                                No scar                                                                                                                                           On the river                                                                                                                                   So too do you stir me                                                                                                                    With your touch.

Just like the wind and the waves                                                                                               All night                                                                                                                                        We turn and touch                                                                                                                        And rise and touch

And in the morning                                                                                                                      We meet again.

Buku Sarkar is a Calcutta/NY and Paris based writer and photographer. Her first book, Not Quite a Disaster After All, is forthcoming in the U.S. this fall. Her first collection of poems, My Dead Flowers, will be out in December.