The 2025 Passager Poet

TRANSCRIPT

The 2025 Passager Poet is Angie Minkin. Her work is featured in Passager’s Fall 2025 issue. On this episode of Burning Bright, four of Angie’s award-winning poems.

Angie wrote a crown of sonnets that linked several generations of the women in her family. A standard “crown of sonnets” contains seven sonnets, with the last line of each sonnet becoming the first line of the next, and the final line of the seventh sonnet repeating the first line of the first sonnet. Passager published five of those sonnets.

Angie said that after her grandfather died, her grandmother was truly impoverished and wanted her children to be cared for, so she sent them to live in a Jewish home, a combination orphanage and foster care facility. Here’s Angie’s sonnet “Song of My Grandmother as She Gives Up Her Children at The Jewish Home.”

My mother’s feet froze before she slammed the door
when my grandmother left her at the home,
Bubbe’s jaw set, feet dragging on the floor,
leaving the kinder to beds, to food. Gone
was her hope, her money, all gone. Alone
since her husband died from the flu. Had to find
odd jobs, to sew masks and shrouds. No crone,
she, but felt old as she worked to weave time
and pay rent – that monthly nut felt like stones
heavy in her pocket. But those kids were safe
at the Home – she thought their smiles shone
wide. Too-rah-loo-rah-li her sad refrain
at night, unheard and my mother’s prayers,
too, unheard. But I learned to tap dance there.

“Song of My Grandmother as She Gives Up Her Children at The Jewish Home.”

Angie said, “Growing up in that kind of place certainly wasn’t ideal, but one good thing that came out of it was that my mother learned to dance.” Here’s Angie’s sonnet “Song of My Mother as She Tap Dances in the Kitchen.”

The woman I will become applauds me
and I applaud my mother, her shuffle,
her kick-ball-change in socks; anklets lacy,
thin, and white. They broke my heart (break it still).
The big band music she loved: Glen Miller,
or maybe Count Basie. Her secret smile
while she bopped across our linoleum,
stirring pots on the stove, always with style.
Her pride as she danced by, her offkey hum,
the radio’s thrum. My brother in his crib,
waving blue booties, sucking his left thumb.
Sweet flow before my father’s heavy tread,
before the music slipped a beat, before
mother’s feet froze, before she slammed the door.

“Song of My Mother as She Tap Dances in the Kitchen.”

Angie Minkin said, “I, too, have always loved to dance. As a teenager I’d shut the door, put on Rhapsody in Blue on the stereo and, you know, put on my black tights, and tie up one of my dad’s white shirts and go kicking around the room and make up my own choreography.”

Angie said she started out by writing “Song of Myself as I Listen to Rhapsody in Blue” as a stand-alone sonnet, after listening to the famous Gershwin song one rainy San Francisco day. She said, “Of course, I was inspired by Whitman as well, but there’s something about that first Gershwin clarinet riff that is so thrilling and inspiring.” Here’s Angie Minkin’s “Song Of Myself as I Listen to Rhapsody in Blue.”

Opening notes twist guts, riffle my spine –
glissando of blues. I’m fourteen again,
black tights and leotard, head back, legs high-
kicking. I’m Natalie Wood, Gwen Verdon,
graced by Robbins and Fosse. A puppet
and the music’s slave. Feelings I’m afraid
to claim. Enthralled by blare of brass trumpets,
I lead a troupe of dancers, far away
to the sky, as we fly through the window.
Following me, only me. Will the eagle
swoop us up? I’ll spread my wings, race shadows
of yearnings, swells of despair. Bow, wheedle
the gods. Music ends. Back to my body –
the woman I will become applauds me.

“Song Of Myself as I Listen to Rhapsody in Blue,” by 2025 Passager Poet Angie Minkin.

She said, “I have a brand-new granddaughter and she fills me with delight and hope. May the world be kind to her. May she be kind to the world. This last sonnet by Angie Minkin isn’t about her granddaughter but about her daughter: “Song Of My Daughter as She Looks in the Mirror.”

This tough cookie, so fragile. Too many fears
as she gazes, steely-eyed. Hard and cold,
hardest on herself, of course. Many tears
released over years as she fought the core
of who she is. Who she has always been –
questioning deepest self; her shell a crust
wintered over, a wren. A shaken moon
thrust off orbit until she finds, as she must,
hidden armor, inner wild warrior,
until she sees herself as hawk-woman
with choices, a long taproot. She forges
a different way, her own, carves a beacon
in a separate sky. We applaud her –
proud plumb line of bubbes, aunts, and mother.

Angie Minkin’s “Song Of My Daughter as She Looks in the Mirror.”

Angie said she still takes dance classes and yoga, particularly inversions like shoulder stands and downward dog. She said, “Being upside down changes your perspective. It helps you see something old in a new way.”

We’ve been listening to pieces by the 2025 Passager Poet Angie Minkin. To buy the issue of Passager that features Angie’s work, or to subscribe to, donate to, or learn more about Passager and its commitment to older writers, visit passagerbooks.com.

Passager is currently offering a holiday sale! Use code “HOLIDAY30” at checkout for 30% off your order. Orders placed after December 16 will be fulfilled on January 7th. 

For Christine, Rosanne, Mary, Asher, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.

Due to the limitations of online publishing, poems may not appear in their original formatting.