Poet: Nicole Reber

                               

The first time I witnessed Nicole Reber read poetry was at a Pratt organized reading in Brooklyn. Her dry and monotone delivery warmed my heart, and her poems were subconscious thoughts I connected with, but never thought to express in words. Nicole’s poems appear in the first issue of DECADES. Here we share a poem not featured in the first issue and an interview with the lovely writer.

Interview with Nicole Reber, by Chloe Schildhause.

Decades Magazine: When did you first start writing Poetry?

Nicole Reber: I think I’ve always been a really lyrically based person but it wasn’t until college that I first started writing poetry. I spent a better part of high school religiously blogging on Xanga, (I just recently reactivated the archive, you can find it at xanga.com/holeymoleynicoly), and have always found a necessity to express myself in my writing. I began to really see poetry as a way I could document my life and the things I’m interested in.

DM: What are you wearing right now?

NR: Green Soffe shorts and a black crop top.

DM: I remember the NYLON art department [Side note: Nicole and I met as interns at this magazine] saying fashion interns do not wear pants. True?

NR: I just starting wearing pants for the first time this year. I think it’s how people knew I was going through a dark period.

DM: Cake or pie?

NR: You and I made a strawberry shortcake last summer which might be the best thing I’ve ever baked. I don’t like excessively hot fruits so pie doesn’t really work for me.

DM: What does Disneyland mean to you?

NR: The older I get, the more inspired I am by everything at Disneyland. A few weeks ago, I visited Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired the Cinderella’s Castle at Disneyland. There was a part in the middle of the castle where you walked from these intense Moorish rooms through a hallway that was a fake cave complex with small walkways lit with rainbow lights. Almost like something you’d see the caverns in Thunder Mountain. I love how Walt Disney really traveled and took these amazing architectural moments from all around the world, the perfect Main Street, the perfect European hamlet, and then seamlessly blended them into one place, sometimes just using different plants and walkway types to transition the moods between the two. I love that wherever you go, the trash can matches the land you’re in. Or the smell of the popcorn stands at night. It combines music, story telling, architecture, all these crazy things into this one world that really is the “most magical place on Earth©.”

Poetry by Nicole Reber:

“Rincon”

We don’t know how we got to the beach. But we made it.  Might have scaled a cliff and held down rocks to get to the beach or took a public entry point.
There might have been a highway above us but I didn’t care to look. There were two girls floating their backs levitating above the ocean like a science experiment.
They’re dead and I don’t mind them in the ocean alone and timeless like its a magazine modern and forever.
I walk down the beach further there are five girls floating and they are dead too.
They have their bikinis on but the bottoms go up past their stomachs stretched to cover their bellies.
I want to know how much paler it is under there and if the skin is decaying under sixties’ floral prints and no one has hurt them they just stopped
the ocean the animals
no one
has taken anything from them
one girl’s halter top is starting to become untied but she’s still modest
I have no problem staring at her beautiful young body and somewhere I hear they’ve floated from Orlando to California
They look so good die drunk water is pulling in already
Find a place on the sand next to my mother and sunbathe until the water catches up to our books and we have to get up again.

∞Posted on May 30, 2012

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