The Poetry of Angie Mazakis
“When I began writing poems about my parents’ deaths, which happened three months apart, it was difficult to write anything. It was especially difficult to write grief poems and want them to be ‘good.’ Sometimes, when I have a hard time writing, I turn to form, so that the challenge of the form becomes somewhat of a distraction, and meaning is not necessarily sovereign, as I attempt to negotiate content and form synchronously. I began to realize that I had several sonnets with water as the common denominator—some relating to the idea of ‘waves of grief’ and some not, so I am working on a water sonnet sequence, and the sonnets here are part of that project.”—Angie Mazakis
Speculative Friction
By Claire Bateman, Poetry Editor
GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Hubris)—April 2025—Published by University of Arkansas Press, and named one of the Best Books of 2020 by The Boston Globe, Angie Mazakis’s first book, I Was Waiting to See What You Would Do First, was chosen by poet Billy Collins as a finalist for The Miller Williams Prize. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in The New Republic, The Boston Review, The Iowa Review, Gulf Coast, The Rumpus, Mizna, and the anthology Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry. Mazakis’s essays have been published in The Atlantic and Gulf Coast. She has an MFA from George Mason University and a PhD from Ohio University.
She writes, “When I began writing poems about my parents’ deaths, which happened three months apart, it was difficult to write anything. It was especially difficult to write grief poems and want them to be ‘good.’ Sometimes, when I have a hard time writing, I turn to form, so that the challenge of the form becomes somewhat of a distraction, and meaning is not necessarily sovereign, as I attempt to negotiate content and form synchronously. I began to realize that I had several sonnets with water as the common denominator—some relating to the idea of ‘waves of grief’ and some not, so I am working on a water sonnet sequence, and the sonnets here are part of that project.”
Distribution of Assets to Beneficiaries
By Angie Mazakis
At first everyone acted like they wanted nothing, the
boys especially flaunted their sudden minimalism,
claiming everything was nonessential—silver tea set,
dad’s books in Arabic, mom’s post-its to herself;
everyone eventually began to develop a modest offensive, a quiet
fight for what was rightfully theirs. The McDonald’s pillowcase with
Grimace—I took it without telling the others, but I knew
how much my brothers would want the carved wooden camels from Bethlehem.
I texted them photos of Star Wars bedsheets—and
just as suddenly as they’d renounced earthly treasures, they would
kill each other over a 40-year-old piece of fabric—“It’s older than
Liz (my younger sister)” said Ric, the oldest. “It pre-dates the Apollo
mission to the moon,” said my other brother, Rob. “The pillowcase voted for
Nixon,” I said, “yeah, we get it.” My sister might never get
over the fact that my mom gave me her ring before she died; she’d
planned already how she’d reset it with other gems, but my mom
quietly placed it on my finger one day and said, “I want you to have it.”
Rob wanted his child modeling photos—the beautiful child, though dad
said he never submitted them anywhere; didn’t want to exploit his son, and
that always made me relieved after the fact. When I found an undated,
unsigned drawing of mom under all the framed photos, I was about to
vanish it into the trash, but Ric said he’d take it, and it wasn’t skillful, so I
was shocked. My mom’s post-it notes were what I wanted most— little
xerox copies of her thoughts, tiny lists of things she wanted to do or find later—
years of them in a drawer. I’d have traded the ring for any one of them, have claimed
zero valuable assets if one post-it answered any number of questions I’d had a lifetime to ask.
Waves
By Angie Mazakis
Sometimes snow falls in the desert. Sometimes
precipitation never hits the ground.
Sometimes grief does not come in waves. It lies
below human frequency, like infrasound.
Or it freezes and shatters, obliterated
with no accompaniment, without
Barber’s Adagio for Strings. Collated
shards compiling to no wistful melodic sound.
Knowing they’d go soon, one of my parents said,
Don’t be sad when I die, but it didn’t matter.
You’ll be sad when I die, the other once said.
One year, a thawing undercurrent shattered
frozen Lake Michigan into millions of pieces
just off the wintry, blanketed beaches.
Waves
By Angie Mazakis
I’ve been going to the same place at the same
time before dusk to see the same starling
murmuration, a dance of claim and counterclaim,
the shape-shifting, liquid-like mass unfurling
communally in the sky—just one change
in one starling affects the multitudes
of others in the flock. How is it not prearranged—
the aqueous synchrony precludes
scientific understanding. Though, in Mexico,
a murmuration of thousands collapsed
to the ground, fell out of the sky. The whole
mass inundated the street, just one lapse,
and the tide was flushed from above.
Though, together, like grief, they can eclipse the sun.
SCUBA Lesson
By Angie Masks
Imagine the eight Japanese tourists in the ocean,
their bodies lifting in unison as though they’d agreed.
Body weight vacated in the night, only the motion
of scuba hoses unhooked, floating, silent as seaweed.
Panic can kill a diver in various ways—rapid,
shallow breathing can cause hypoxia and buildup of
carbon dioxide. And no one can guess who will panic.
Though it’s more likely if you’ve panicked on dry land above.
The first rule: never stop breathing. If you forget, you’re dead.
Your lungs explode. Pain means it’s too late, but you should remain
hopeful, head to the surface. Of all the instructor said,
what I wrote down twice was, “Be able to recognize pain.”
Of course, it seemed obvious, such an easy thing to do.
Until your furtive kind, my lungs burst, I drowned beneath you.
Editor’s Note: Mazakis’s first poem above, Distribution of Assets to Beneficiaries, is an example of an abecedarian.
To order copies of Claire Bateman’s books, Wonders of the Invisible World, Scape, or Coronology from Amazon, click on the book covers below.
Claire Bateman
Claire Bateman’s books include Scape (New Issues Poetry & Prose); Locals (Serving House Books), The Bicycle Slow Race (Wesleyan University Press), Friction (Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize), At The Funeral Of The Ether (Ninety-Six Press, Furman University), Clumsy (New Issues Poetry & Prose), Leap (New Issues), and Coronology (Etruscan Press). She has been awarded Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Surdna Foundation, as well as two Pushcart Prizes and the New Millennium Writings 40th Anniversary Poetry Prize. She has taught at Clemson University, the Greenville Fine Arts Center, and various workshops and conferences such as Bread Loaf and Mount Holyoke. She lives in Greenville, South Carolina. (Please see Bateman’s amazon.com Author’s Page for links to all her publications, and go here for further information about the poet and her work.) (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)