Flagrance, by Sylvia Byrne Pollack

Sylvia Byrne Pollack’s work has appeared in Floating Bridge Review, Crab
Creek Review, Clover, and Antiphon among other print and online journals.
A Pushcart nominee, she received the 2013 Mason’s Road Winter Literary
Award for her poem “Gregory” and was a finalist for the 2014 inaugural
Russell Prize.

About the poem:

“Flagrance” began life as “Cherries,” a ten line riff on a dying tree. This year’s
anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake led me to revisit “Cherries.” Through seven
revisions (more florid, then less; personified cherry blossoms; varied details of the
earthquake), I ultimately sought a lean, restrained, shibui telling of the story. And I
got to conflate fragrance and flagrant!