DANDY DOUBLE: Featuring Cathy Socarras Ferrell & Miriam Calleja
Dandelion Scribes is proud to present a collection of poems from our newest DANDY DOUBLE: Cathy Socarras Ferrell & Miriam Calleja!
Cathy and Miriam are a brilliant pair of poets who first met several years ago in Seattle at AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs). They had each participated in Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Challenge—to write 30 poems in 30 days—as part of different cohorts. After this, a mutual friend helped them connect virtually, and they began a sort of pen-pal friendship.
One day, while commiserating about the cost of writing retreats, Miriam had a wild idea and invited Cathy to come visit her. Cathy took a few days off work, and flew up to stay with Miriam and focus on writing. They collaborated, ate lots of good food, took many walks, and came up with a fun idea: Miriam suggested that they sign up for Tupelo 30/30 again, together this time, and respond to each others’ poems the entire month of October. All month long, they wrote back and forth, inspiring and spurring each other on. Now that they have around 60 poems collectively, they plan to edit and refine them into a collaborative book.
To learn more about Cathy & Miriam’s collaborative efforts and be inspired by their creative innovations, check out Miriam’s Substack article, How to Create Your Own Writing Retreat.
Keep reading below to get to know Cathy & Miriam and read a selection of their favorite original works!
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
–CATHY SOCARRAS FERRELL–
Cathy Socarras Ferrell is a poet, writer, and educator of Cuban-French-Irish heritage. The granddaughter of immigrants, she finds inspiration in family story-telling, walking (anywhere), and the Sandhill cranes in her yard. Cathy enjoys playing with form, space, and the sounds of language. Cathy has served the community as a public school educator since 2006. She has taught in Early Childhood classrooms, coached elementary and secondary students in literacy, and mentored teachers in a variety of content areas. She currently serves as a high school Literacy Coach. Her work can be found at Dandelion Scribes, Making Waves, Santa Clara Review, Novus Literary Arts Journal, Compulsive Reader, and other literary journals, as well as the scholarly collection, Shakespeare and Latinidad, edited by Trevor Boffone and Carla Della Gotta. She is an alumna of Tupelo Press’ 30/30 Project, October 2022, 2023, and 2024 cohorts. Read more from Cathy on her website ferrellwords.com and follow along on Instagram @cathysocarrasferrell.
Q&A with Cathy
1. How did you start writing poetry? Since I was a child, I have enjoyed scribbling my thoughts out into some semblance of poetry. However, it wasn’t until around 2020 that I really began taking myself seriously. One day, I stumbled upon Kai Coggin’s Wednesday Night Poetry series and rediscovered my love of poetry and sharing it with others. I spent time building friendships and community, and continued learning and growing as a poet. Since then, I have published numerous pieces online and in print, am an alumna of the Tupelo Press 30/30 Challenge, and am currently working on a new poetry manuscript.
2. Who are your favorite writers and poetry inspirations? I really enjoy reading work published by friends and peers. Currently, I am reading Julie Marie Wade’s The Mary Years and Gary Thomas’ O Yes We Breathe. I was also inspired recently by Diane Seuss’ Modern Poetry, Susan Rich’s Blue Atlas, and Jane Hirshfield’s Lives of the Heart.
3. What topics do you gravitate toward in your writing? I tend to write about the search for reconnection with my Cuban roots, as well as eldest daughter syndrome and motherhood.
4. What are your favorite past-times and activities that inform/inspire your writing? I love to walk. I love watching the Sandhill cranes that haunt my yard. I enjoy cooking, especially recipes I learned by watching my abuelos in the kitchen. And I live to travel.
5. What are your personal writing goals? I am currently working on a poetry manuscript comprised mostly of poems written during Tupelo 30/30 Challenge months. The manuscript has ventured out to a few small presses, so far. This year, I plan to continue collaborating with Miriam on our shared book.
–Poems by Cathy Socarras Ferrell–
The acute accent slipped off the third syllable
of our family name. We flattened our vowels, verb conjugation, the sway in our hips. We dropped the last of the songs. Benny Moré and José Martí. Las palabras, the ghosts in our throats, red threads of saffron turned gold. Alchemy in la olla. Abuelo’s recipe for ropa vieja. Smoked paprika. Loam and sepia. What color is the soil in Cuba? ¿Quién se apoderó de nuestra tierra? Abuela said she would never go back. Might as well be martian. A wedge of lime. Will you squeeze the juice into my tumbler? Rum and sugarcane. Turn this Coke into a Cuba Libre, please. No cigar. Dark hair and ojos verdes. I am a fake Cuban, but I can still roll my rs.
*Note: This poem was first published in South Florida Poetry Journal, 2024.
⚘
I want the kind of happy that’s like
your teenage niece when she scores Taylor Swift tickets like it’s Dolly’s first Grammy like being the 10th caller when you never win anything like two lines on a stick when you’ve been trying for months like one line when you’re not ready like one line when you’ve had a sore throat but no fever like enemies to lovers like running away with the villain like the scuff on those don’t fuck with me boots you wear with a slip like running through rain like the silk of rose petal in your gin like being alone in Target like the first few notes of Landslide taking hold of your body like the ache in the belly of a cello like that lucky kid whose parents love each other like Etta singing Sunday Kind Of Love like orange blossom through rolled-down windows like making it to Friday like going braless at the end of a long day
*Note: Includes a line from Susan Rich’s “Attempting Speculative Fiction,” Blue Atlas.
This poem was first published in Making Waves, 2024.
⚘
Night-blooming cactus blooms once a year like Cinderella, she wilts by morning
By morning Cinderella wilts
without her glass slipper, she left
a slipper of glass, left without
a foot inside.
A foot inside the door
waiting to be let in;
Wait let me in!
I carry all the bags.
All the bags I carry
are filled with food and wine.
Filled with food and wine
we talk and laugh all evening.
All evening as we laugh and talk
Abuelo sits to the side
alone. Abuelo sits on the side
of his walker. He calls me
to walk over, calling, ¡Oye, ven acá!
Look at his suit and tie.
Look! My suit and tie
for the wedding.
For the wedding
I wear a silk black and white tie.
I tie the black and white silk and wear
a matching pocket square, a panuelito.
A square panuelito to match.
He hobbles along holding on,
holding on and hobbling,
trailing his black and white square.
A square of silky black and white trailing
one by one everyone leaves.
Everyone leaves one by one,
to see the night-blooming cactus bloom white and full.
*Note: This poem was first published in Santa Clara Review, 2024.
⚘
Chiroptera at dusk
We lie belly-up on the trampoline
rest on its taut dark mesh,
watch for darting swoops.
Baby bats are pups or bittens,
hover under their mothers’ arms,
suckle and shelter. They have navels.
Bats form colonies, camps, clouds.
Spread hand-wings wide,
catch air in a net of membranes.
I have fed mouths from my body
been bitten by
tiny fangs seeking
fullness
phantom needles still prick
at the expression of hunger
in the cooling night
I fold both bittens into my span.
we look at the world hanging upside down,
an anomaly
more agile than anything
with feathers
*Note: This poem was first published in Wild Roof Journal, 2024.
⚘
Women who wake
Edna Pontellier stepped into
an unabridged salt green sea.
Did she open her mouth there
on the sand? Did she try to shout?
They did not hear. Instead,
naked
silence in its entirety. Tongues bear the after
taste of grief. Our mouths are chock
full of it. So full
our cheeks bulge. Most of the time,
we choke
it down. Edna, did it stick
in your throat, too?
Breathing keeps us
buoyant. We float,
chest rising and resting in
the little sigh of coming to
surface, seaweed and hair clutched in our fists.
*Note: Includes lines from Diane Seuss’ “Threnody” and Miriam Calleja’s “There is no weakness”; with inspiration from Kate Chopin’s “The Awakening.”
–MIRIAM CALLEJA–
Miriam Calleja is an award-winning Pushcart-nominated poet, writer, workshop leader, and translator. She has hosted community generative writing workshops in Europe and the US for the past 10 years. She is the author of three poetry collections, two chapbooks, and several collaborative works. Her poetry has been published in anthologies and in translation worldwide. She has been Highly Commended for a translated poem by the Stephen Spender Trust. Her latest chapbook is titled Come Closer, I Don’t Mind the Silence (BottleCap Press, 2023). Her work has appeared in platform review, Odyssey, Taos Journal, Tupelo Quarterly, Modern Poetry in Translation, humana obscura, and elsewhere. Miriam is from Malta and currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama. Read more on Miriam’s website miriamcalleja.com and subscribe on Substack to her publication Permission to Write. You can also follow her on Instagram @miriamcalleja. And don’t forget to check out her upcoming workshop!
Q&A with Miriam
1. How did you start writing poetry? I’d always been an avid reader, coming home from the public library with stacks of books (as many as they’d let me take) and then disappearing into my bedroom for days. My mother tells a story of when we were once on holiday, and at some point, she couldn’t find me. I was still too young to be roaming around an unknown place alone, and she feared the worst, but she eventually found me huddled with a book in a large armchair in a secluded corner of a bookshop. I began writing poetry as a pre-teen or early teen, and I have a vivid memory of that first impulse. It reflected my need to process an emotion for which I had no vocabulary, so I found a way to express myself in metaphor. I think you can say that it was in ars poetica form, and it started something like this: There’s a small exit sign in my head.
2. Who are your favorite writers and poetry inspirations? This is a difficult question to answer and it just gets more difficult as time goes by. I’m lucky to say that I have so many friends who are writers, poets, and artists, and being around them, listening to their ideas and even their pains, being in the same space with them gives me courage and reason to carry on writing. Birmingham has a thriving and encouraging writing community. We lift each other. Aside from being inspired by their work, I feel carried by the way they live their lives, caring for others, fighting for equality, looking at the natural world, and speaking raw truths. Aside from poetry, I love reading craft books and books on creativity and problem-solving. Some favorite poets are Louise Gluck, Kim Addonizio, Pablo Neruda, Ross Gay, Naomi Shihab Nye, Margaret Atwood, Mary Oliver, Wislawa Szymborska, Joy Harjo, Ada Limon, Kai Coggin, Danusha Lameris, Derek Walcott, Wendell Berry, Li-Young Lee, Jean Luis Borges, Catherine Pierce, and on and on…
3. What topics do you gravitate toward in your writing? The body, the sea or any body of water, the sensual, the cruel, the vengeful, dance, food, coffee, music, living creatures, the beautiful and ugly, love and lack of love in all its iterations, unique, unforgettable moments, and anything that can be felt but scarcely described.
4. What are your favorite past-times and activities that inform/inspire your writing? Traveling, getting lost, going to museums, walking, talking, observing, feeling balanced, making, drinking coffee in cute coffee shops, creating, discussing, loving, feeling, moving, meeting new and old friends.
5. What are your personal writing goals? This year, I’d like to continue working with Cathy on our collaborative manuscript. Aside from that, I am the artist in residence at the Mobile Medical Museum, so I’ll be researching and working on some texts (poetry, prose, and collage) related to the absence of women in medical history. I’ll be using their exhibit on vision problems as a jump board, with devices such as erasure to drive my message through.
–Poems by Miriam Calleja–
+5
(by Nadia Mifsud, translated by Miriam Calleja)
abracadabresque
this silence spreading sorrow
from one building to the next
in this tangled town
today it wasn’t the streets
that roused hoarse
gasping for breath—
but us
muttering erratic antidotes
against the black crows
arrogantly marking territory
from roofs
we cringe when we hear them
snitching on us
their cries
tearing the mocking blue sky
they spread their wings in warning—
and immediately the groans
of an ambulance—
our irritation for them grows
we eavesdrop the gossip
of birds telephoned
from branch to branch
from tree to tree
from rooftop to rooftop
beautiful blues and greens
on the magpie’s tail
we are envious of the deadbeat doves
wriggling on the waterspout
we lean on the edge, let down our hair
enjoy the feel of it
plaiting in the wind
we admire the yellow and violet dance
of tulips and irises
in empty yards
tomorrow, love,
we’ll perch at the window again
wave at our neighbor across the road
beckon to the wind and the swallows
and maybe, who knows,
glimpse a few butterflies
from six storeys up
*Note: This poem is a translation of Nadia Mifsud’s “+5” from the upcoming full-length “Variations of Silence” (Poetry Wala, 2025). First published on Plume.
⚘
Beatbox Whisper
(After a line from “Second Estrangement” by Aracelis Grimay & After Kate Sweeney)
I never said you couldn’t borrow it for its basic uses, used as it is, a bruised tomato, an overripe pomegranate, its seeds sticking in the teeth of years, years so discordant I wouldn’t call them salad days, but you could, and you could squeeze out the stretch of these red fruits and drink it in front of me with ice and a little satisfied “Ahh!” at the end, and I think you could, and you would know that nothing is spent, nothing is wasted as I watch and I thirst, as I repeat each word after you my lips once again puppets, you are quenched by my tongue even if it is parched and leathery—you didn’t offer me the crushed ice my dear, my love, I forgive you sly and silk and fragrant—my embrace is my dehydration of you, I would say there’s an orchard with one tree missing, you took a gap and offered it to the world, ice clinking (no, crushing!) shards in your glass, it melts and you still don’t offer me a sip.
Raise your hand if
you never counted
as you popped each seed, each bite
a memory of the last.
*Note: This poem was first published in Novus Literary (Autumn/Winter 2024).
⚘
End of summer nocturne
Figure out a compromise
by opening the window,
let the cold night stars in.
Glass bottles dumped all at once.
The room is too hot. Too cold
the far-away sound of water.
You, in the next room.
You. In the next room
the far-away sound of water,
the room is too hot too cold.
Glass bottles dumped all at once
let the cold night stars in.
By opening the window,
figure out a compromise:
never get a reply.
*Note: This poem was first published on Leon Literary Review.
⚘
Instruction Manual: Sheets of Desire
i. The problem - Look what you made me do
she’s had / is / too much / has / vodka tonic / had / a short skirt / hiked up / spiked / who’d you look at? / she’s got that / look / doesn’t order salads / eats / like a man / too many phone numbers saved / open plan / who sits beside you? / where have you been? / the past is / we both know what that means / de—col—le—tage / why would you wear / perfume / why would you need / when you have me / look what you made me do / erase the past / delete / tame / your laugh / pictures / you asked for it call my bluff / look / it won’t happen again / if you / quit / don’t text / bad / mad woman / hysterical girl / enough / why do you look at / slut / you don’t know what’s good for you / quiet / the neighbours will hear / don’t cry / I’ll buy you another / one too many / here here / the last time / you are mine / nobody will love you like I do / look what you made me do / look what you made me do / look what you made me do
ii. The solution - Instruction manual
Align Desire (diagram 1) with Lack of Desire (diagram 2) so that the seams touch. You may notice a difference in size, as shown in the image on the box. Note that contents may have moved during transportation.
Leave 1” overlap on the window of the face. Clean the face's surface, ensuring it is free from oils, lotions, tears, and dust.
Sprinkle tears on both the face and the sheets of desire. The first set of tears has been provided. Kindly go to the company website if you cannot provide your own.
Starting from the top, apply gentle pressure while squeezing the air out in brisk, firm strokes. Do not change your mind.
Use the fourth finger to soothe the face. Ensure the eyes are covered well by dissolving true lust in them. Imitation lust will not produce a long-lasting effect.
The nose must be stuffed with whims warmed up in a bain marie.
Speak your last true words before applying the sheets over the mouth; remember to bite on the word NO before letting it dissolve under the tongue. Wait for the fizz to start before completely closing the sheet over the chin.
*In case of a severe allergic reaction, please panic and scream to liberate yourself within a few minutes.
**Warnings: I am not a toy, only a woman to toy with.
*Note: This poem was first published in The Feminine Voice of Malta (International Human Rights Art Movement, 2024) and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
⚘
Don’t be mad
I drew outlines of each cloud
ready to commit them to memory
but they drifted off and I was left
with strange art. I stuck my hands
in dung and recalled my previous lives
when I’d have never dreamed of it.
I didn’t want to pull out weeds.
They looked pretty and as though
they might make flowers. I didn’t stick
with the plan and anything that grows
will grow out of chaos. Don’t be mad
one mockingbird can teach me every cry.
*Note: This poem was first published in humana obscura (issue 9, 2024).
𖤣.𖥧.𖡼.⚘
Interested in being a DANDY DOUBLE alongside your best friend, collaborator, or creative partner? Introduce yourself and submit your work over on our submissions page.
With endless love & gratitude,
