Océano | Eleanor Paynter

Eleanor Paynter is a writer and educator and is currently immersed in the Comparative Studies doctoral program at Ohio State, working in the areas of refugee studies, oral history, and narrative. Her poems have previously appeared in the chapbook Dismantling the Hive (Toadlily) and in publications such as Diagram, Nimrod, and Two Serious Ladies. Eleanor also serves as an editor with the Amsterdam-based literary & arts journal Versal. She tweets @ebpaynter.     Writing OutMy task is to find her again and again and keep her from peeling her wrists. I’m not sure whether this dream is a response to the bombsin Brussels or the fact that we are buyinga house. The dream is less about bodies, more about not letting someone fall. In the afternoon, I scoldthe class for using the phrase “bad writing” for a bookI call poetry, by which I mean text raw enoughthat to read is to touch, to hold whole versions of the worldon the tongue. This is what remains, for some of us, of prayer.If the poem is