Jennifer Perrine's Blog - Posts Tagged "nepantla"

Autumn is rolling in, heralded here by a string of overcast days, the slightest hint of yellow in the maples, and swifts roosting in chimneys. It only seems appropriate that I've been writing about transformations and cycles, about new beginnings and the endings they sometimes entail. One of those poems is out now in Nepantla: A Journal Dedicated to Queer Poets of Color. It cheers me that the poem, "We Have Come to the End of the Oyster Months," found its way into the world just as September returns us to oyster season, the delicious lushness that only comes with cold weather. It also cheers me to be counted among other poets I adore: June Jordan, whose "Poem about Police Violence" is just as relevant today as when she wrote it; Tatiana De LA Tierra, who sings the praises of "unsavory lesbians"; Julian Randall, writing of how origin is bound up with trauma; Ocean Vuong, in an interview on pop culture, colloquialisms, and common ground; and Brenda Shaughnessy, eloquent as always, talking about embarrassment and fear and music and desire. "Poets can't beat time," Shaughnessy says, so as we all hustle toward the equinox, may there be dancing in your September, and only blue talk and love.