Using Rust as Pigment, by Jeff Burt

Jeff Burt lives in Santa Cruz County, CA, and works in mental health. He has work in Atticus Review, Per Contra, The Watershed Review, and Clare Literary Magazine. He was the summer issue special poet of Clerestory in 2015.


Poet on the poem:
What we mean by words often requires a deeper explanation than the denotation or even connotation of a work. Rust has an arresting color, the sign of metal fatigue even if the metal remains firm, a sign of dying while living. Seeing rust as a color, I had to come to a poetic understanding of what it meant, the past living in the present, the desire to rest.