Rachlin and Bundschuh: Poems in Dialogue

Abstract

Jessica and Ellen are old friends, living continents apart who met up in Regensburg in May 2022. Upon exiting a circular stairwall of the Old Town Hall, they noticed a bronze nail bent, rusted and lying on the ground. Jessica held it in her open palm and suggested that they each write a poem about the nail. What may appear to contain shades of a Shelleyesque challenge was not a competition at all, but a mutual encouragement to write a poem.