We are almost talking

Jonnell Liebl
Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:45:30 PDT

These poems move as a conversation would: they circle, they get distracted, they get personal, they change the topic. They try to tell you something, like an accidental autobiography, or bits and pieces of distress, or the probing of emotions in a way that is more than just cathartic. There are various cycles of repetition (echoes) in these poems through obsessive content and images, repeated phrases and words, and on an individual scale in several poems. There are many references to reflections, and many poems which were built and written with reflective patterns in images or stanzaically. These poems are public on a surface level; the sonic, lyric, and imagistic qualities of the poems grab a reader's attention. The places where the poems are private lie in the metaphorical musings, where the surface of the poem is driven by language, usually in a rapid rhythm. The most honest and revealing sections come when memory collides with writing. The collection is a verbalization of traumatic experiences full of distractions, intentional changes of topic, and interruptions. In many ways, the collection drives toward the last line "I think I was supposed to tell you it's okay." The implications are several. Firstly, I really don't know what I'm supposed to be telling you. Secondly, it is not okay. Thirdly, if I should be saying it, is there a right way to say it? This collection is not committed to the idea of a right way to say a thing, and has never even heard the word resolution. Or, another way to look at it: Does a conversation ever come to a resolution? Or, what do we mean by good bye? Certainly not goodbye forever. Nor do we usually mean "See you later" to mean later that same day. In some cases, later spans years. Is a conversation ever truly "over" or are we constantly picking up the same one, reexamining, pushing it, repeating ourselves, asking the same set of questions to someone we've known for years and always getting variations of an answer which, as it turns out, has a theme. That theme is the person's life--their inner narrative, maybe the inner monologue, maybe the inner dramatic personae. This lifelong conversation is broken over days and locations, gets caught in themes, and is interrupted by other people; by your memories and thoughts and sudden connections; by the other person's memories and thoughts and sudden connections. Hence the 'almost' of We are Almost Talking. Or: "The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors; and invisible guests come in and out at will." Czesław Miłosz's "Ars Poetica?" This manuscript resists closure but not disclosure. Or "I write for myself and strangers" as Gertrude Stein said.