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Pineda, Laura

The Prairie Light Review 
Volume 47 
Number 1 Spring 2025 Article 27 
Spring 5-1-2025 
Poetics. 
Laura Pineda 
College of DuPage 
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr 
Recommended Citation 
Pineda, Laura (2025) "Poetics.," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 47: No. 1, Article 27. 
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol47/iss1/27 
This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For 
more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu. 
26
Pierson Lipschultz
Photography
Laura Pineda
Untitled
27
Poetry is like the physical expression of  all thoughts that I’ve failed to convey; they’re 
the sighs that replace any utterance I seldom have courage to speak. They are the 
words that are given a physical space, meaning that they exist in a space outside of  
my mind, and they take the form of  a discipline of  both art and literature. This is 
a form that often helps the audience just as much as the writer. My thoughts, my 
emotions can then be shared for something greater than just me, which makes me 
feel less alone, like I matter. The words I put down are ones I spend time with: I 
plant them on the page and fertilize them so that the landscape is harmonious, 
and digestible. It often takes me much longer than I care to admit to finish a piece; 
however, I know that whomever has the chance to view a bouquet of  my feelings 
makes the effort worth it, because ultimately it’s the effort that makes such chaos of  
the mind absolutely stunning. 
Just ask any poet. 
Poetics.
1
Pineda: Poetics.
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Poetics.

Barnes, Devona

The Prairie Light Review 
Volume 47 
Number 1 Spring 2025 Article 38 
Spring 5-1-2025 
Soultry 
Devona Barnes 
College of DuPage 
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr 
Recommended Citation 
Barnes, Devona (2025) "Soultry," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 47: No. 1, Article 38. 
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol47/iss1/38 
This Artwork is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For 
more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu. 
My consciousness has been ripped from my flesh, 
the transition must have been painless. 
I have felt nothing. 
My meaty remains orchestrated by butcher twine, 
my leather suede shoes clomp toward my chair. 
Each day my march becomes more erratic, whatever bones I have,
 are liquified. 
The spoor of  rot follows wherever I go, 
I ooze into my chair a final time. 
From diseased meat, a heap of  maggots, and finally the grot that stains the floor. 
Someone has to clean that up.
Untitled
Divine Nkanga
Soultry
43
Devona Barnes
Photography42 1
Barnes: Soultry
Published by DigitalCommons@COD, 2025


Soultry

Janas, DJ

The Prairie Light Review 
Volume 47 
Number 1 Spring 2025 Article 68 
Spring 5-1-2025 
Into the Mist 
DJ Janas 
College of DuPage 
Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr 
Recommended Citation 
Janas, DJ (2025) "Into the Mist," The Prairie Light Review: Vol. 47: No. 1, Article 68. 
Available at: https://dc.cod.edu/plr/vol47/iss1/68 
This Artwork is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It 
has been accepted for inclusion in The Prairie Light Review by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@COD. For 
more information, please contact orenick@cod.edu. 
There is a rough dark stone, 
rogued by its friendly woes; 
 it is mindless, 
 passively spiraling,
 circling the deep abyss of  the distant Light:
its dense wholeness—
and emptiness,
its faint touch of  Sun,
expanding forever,
drifting oh so slowly;
I will only feel the coldness of  it all.
For when will I feel joyous—
 to embrace and hold 
the Sun's gentle touch,
 to come near to its Holy and Grace,
rather than a slave to my destiny;
fate; 
casualty—
wrath of  the Almighty. 
Its dark and draconian shores
 filled with bruised craters and icy homes
  sit alone as the rocks float
   neither being able to skip nor step from stone to stone.
To who will protect me 
 from the condescent flurries of  peckings and stone;
  as Sisyphus endures his boulder;
  as Prometheus rots and lingers,
   who is there to give them the water pitcher?
For what these Heavenly myriads express is darker,
 and more fathomless
  than our natural mystery 
   and misery.
72
On Pluto’s Dark Shore
Alyssa Marie Cordero
In
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 Th
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M
ist
D
J J
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as
Ph
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Janas: Into the Mist
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Poetics.

Soultry

Into the Mist

Table of Contents

Poison

Woad

Where the Trees Dream

His Lashes Were the Wings of a Dragonfly

Zlatibor

Mount Fuji

7,467

11,908