Community Anthologies
Community Anthologies: 2023, On Permanence
Vela, Teri
By Teri Vela

she/her

Superstition Sonnet

Poetry

Teri Vela’s “Superstition Sonnet” invites readers to dispense with everything they think they know about the sonnet. It is not the rules of a form, but the warp and weft of intergenerational violence and prevailing softness that tethers these intricate lines together into a powerful reverse origin story.

The header image was created by Natasha Loewy and Owen Takabayashi, featured artists for the On Permanence anthology.

Author’s note: The last line of the poem is from my #1 favorite Douglas Kearney lecture #WEREWOLFGOALS.

Vela, Teri
Teri Vela

Teri Vela is a poet, witch, and mother, born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada (a city standing on Southern Paiute traditional lands). She is the first generation of her family born in the US, and a former public interest attorney. Her publications include poetry in Honey Literary Journal, Witch Craft Magazine, Gordon Square Review and more. She is a reader for Split Lip Magazine and a former managing editor with The Seventh Wave. Her favorite food is mango in all forms: sour, sweet, spicy, unripe, sticky with rice, and so on. She is an MFA candidate at Warren Wilson College.

Edited by Briana Gwin.
Share Copy link
Explore

We nurture and champion the voices of those dedicated to their craft.

  • My Father Is a Crab Nebula

    Amy Rose Lafty Poetry
    Part elegy, part prayer, part epistolary masterpiece—Amy Rose Lafty’s “My Father Is a Crab Nebula” is as littered with love and grief as the galaxy is replete with stars. You won’t soon find a more intimate glimpse into the cosmic transcendence of a life lost too soon—and the mourning that comes from being left behind.
    Read

  • The Sound of Absence

    Erin Langner Nonfiction, Prose
    Erin Langner is well into adulthood when she is suddenly overcome with nostalgia—and guilt—about her long-since-over childhood obsession with the late R&B icon Aaliyah. In her essay, “The Sound of Absence,” Langner is a reporter and poet both, investigating the psychological phenomena of cultural erasure while also penning a heart-achingly tender ode to the things we love and lose, and the things time begs us to leave behind.
    Read

  • A timeline of TSW’s beginnings and becomings

    Insights About SW
    At The Seventh Wave, intentionality and accessibility are at the heart of everything we do. Ever since we began in […]
    Read
Back to On Permanence • Curated by Briana Gwin