154
2020
NORTH CAROLINA L I T E R A R Y RE V I E W
FINALIST, 2019 JAMES APPLEWHITE POETRY PRIZE BY JON OBERMEYER
Still Life with Monoclonal Antibodies “Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses, waiting to see us act with beauty and courage”—Rilke Ten stories of glass and natural light betray the battles fought in each nook, each private room with a pocket door and a palliative view of the St. John’s, a rare river that flows north, like the Nile. North Florida light floods pine swamp
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
and salt marsh brack with equal measure. It ignores the intravenous drip obelisks and chariot wheelchairs pushed by volunteers. The morning light rains down on mettle and pluck, on fields of battle, onto fear and bravura. It induces the artful peeling open of a tangerine into a six-petal flower, blossoming near the infusion chair where you sat: a princess enthroned, sipping from a chalice.
Warrior (mixed media on panel, 18x24), by Chieko Murasugi
CHIEKO MURASUGI was born in Tokyo and moved to North Carolina in 2012. She has a PhD in Eperimental Psychology from New York University and an MFA in Studio Art from UNC Chapel Hill. She has exhibited her work in San Francisco, New York, and in North Carolina at the Block Gallery, Artspace, Greenhill Center, UNC Greensboro’s Gatewood Gallery, and the Ackland and Mint Museums. Her paintings appear in the permanent collections of the City of Raleigh and Duke University. See more of her work on her website.
JON OBERMEYER is a graduate of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, CA, and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from UNC Greensboro, where he served as Associate Poetry Editor of The Greensboro Review. He lives in Bethesda, NC. A poet, short story writer, essayist, and memoirist, he has published eight books of creative work and makes his living writing grants and editing business books on themes like artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and mergers and acquisitions. This is his third time as an Applewhite Prize finalist. Read his previous finalist poems in NCLR 2018 and NCLR Online 2019.