Jennifer Perrine's Blog, page 2
July 30, 2017
Tomorrow's Chances Feel Like a Singing God
Last Sunday, I went for a hike, as I do most weekends, and when I came back from my trek in the mountains, a message was waiting on my phone. Jenine Gordon Bockman, editor of
Literal Latte
, had called to let me know that my short story, "Out of Order," had won the magazine's fiction prize! I did a little dance right there at the trailhead, although the dance didn't last too long, as I was pretty wobbly-legged by then.
This was (is!) big news for me. I've been writing fiction for a while, but I've only been sending it out to magazines for the last year or so. In that year, a few editors have written back some kind notes, but all of them passed on publishing my stories. I was beginning to think I ought to throw in the towel, especially with stories like "Out of Order." It's science fiction and nearly 8,000 words long, both of which put it outside the scope of most literary journals. So, it was a surprise, a delight, and a confidence-boost to hear not only that Literal Latte was interested in publishing "Out of Order" but also that they'd chosen it for their fiction award. The story is due to come out in their Fall issue, when I'm sure I will babble about it on the blog all over again.
In other news... Rattle posted my poem, "I Tell Death, Eventually", as their poem of the day back on June 23. Although I've been reading Rattle for years, it wasn't until this last month that I realized what a supportive and extensive poetry community editor Tim Green has built, especially through the digital components of the journal. In the days following my poem's posting, I received more kind emails from readers than I had in the previous ten years. People were generous with their own stories about loss and grief and mortality, and I appreciated their candor and vulnerability. Beyond that, it was also heartening just to know that so many people were out there reading poetry on any given day. At a time when literary and arts programs are so often disparaged and subject to budget cuts, knowing there are so many other poetry-lovers out there gives me hope.
And speaking of budget cuts, I wanted to give a shout out to the editors at Crab Orchard Review , which is in the process of converting from a print to an online-only journal in the wake of spending restrictions and staffing reductions. Allison Joseph, Jon Tribble, and Carolyn Alessio have been putting together one of the best journals out there for years, and I'm honored to have my poem, "The Gauntlet," included in one of the final print issues. "The Gauntlet" is one of the few poems I've written where I directly address race--in particular, the unease I felt at being one of the few people of color in my old neighborhood in Iowa--and I'm grateful to the folks at Crab Orchard Review for publishing it. (I'm also grateful that now, for the first time in my life, I live in a racially and culturally diverse neighborhood. I still think a lot about race, and it would be foolish in the current political environment to say I feel unworried and entirely safe, but I don't feel the same kind of fear I did in places where I was the only person of color around. There's power--and peace--in numbers.)
This was (is!) big news for me. I've been writing fiction for a while, but I've only been sending it out to magazines for the last year or so. In that year, a few editors have written back some kind notes, but all of them passed on publishing my stories. I was beginning to think I ought to throw in the towel, especially with stories like "Out of Order." It's science fiction and nearly 8,000 words long, both of which put it outside the scope of most literary journals. So, it was a surprise, a delight, and a confidence-boost to hear not only that Literal Latte was interested in publishing "Out of Order" but also that they'd chosen it for their fiction award. The story is due to come out in their Fall issue, when I'm sure I will babble about it on the blog all over again.
In other news... Rattle posted my poem, "I Tell Death, Eventually", as their poem of the day back on June 23. Although I've been reading Rattle for years, it wasn't until this last month that I realized what a supportive and extensive poetry community editor Tim Green has built, especially through the digital components of the journal. In the days following my poem's posting, I received more kind emails from readers than I had in the previous ten years. People were generous with their own stories about loss and grief and mortality, and I appreciated their candor and vulnerability. Beyond that, it was also heartening just to know that so many people were out there reading poetry on any given day. At a time when literary and arts programs are so often disparaged and subject to budget cuts, knowing there are so many other poetry-lovers out there gives me hope.
And speaking of budget cuts, I wanted to give a shout out to the editors at Crab Orchard Review , which is in the process of converting from a print to an online-only journal in the wake of spending restrictions and staffing reductions. Allison Joseph, Jon Tribble, and Carolyn Alessio have been putting together one of the best journals out there for years, and I'm honored to have my poem, "The Gauntlet," included in one of the final print issues. "The Gauntlet" is one of the few poems I've written where I directly address race--in particular, the unease I felt at being one of the few people of color in my old neighborhood in Iowa--and I'm grateful to the folks at Crab Orchard Review for publishing it. (I'm also grateful that now, for the first time in my life, I live in a racially and culturally diverse neighborhood. I still think a lot about race, and it would be foolish in the current political environment to say I feel unworried and entirely safe, but I don't feel the same kind of fear I did in places where I was the only person of color around. There's power--and peace--in numbers.)
May 17, 2017
The Girl I Used To Love Lives In This Yellow House
And then it was May. The last few months have been quite the marathon, in no small part due to the Inauguries. After the leisurely wonderland of Vermont, I came back to Oregon and dizzied myself trying to squeeze a poem a day around the obligations of humdrum, ordinary life. I woke up in the wee hours to write before work, stayed up bleary-eyed in hotel rooms trying to compose poems after traveling all day, and faced more than a few occasions where I thought it might be best to throw in the towel altogether. If nothing else, the project reminded me that I am, at heart, a stubborn fool.
I still have a list of words I wanted to use--and Trump is picking up new favorite terms every day--but I'm happy that the 100 days are over. (If only the administration were as short-lived as this project was.) Maybe I'll revisit some of those other words at a later date, but for now I'm taking a much needed rest from poem-writing and turning instead to seeing whether the Inauguries have the making of a manuscript in them. It feels strange to try to split up and rearrange the poems into a book, but folks keep encouraging me to get these babies out beyond the blog, so I'm giving it a shot.
In the months since my last post, I've amassed quite the list of shout-outs that have remained shut-in while I was engrossed with writing the Inauguries. So, at long last...
Cheers to Peter Kahn, Ravi Shankar, and Patricia Smith, for editing The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks. The anthology riffs on the Golden Shovel form created by Terrance Hayes, which borrows a line from one of Brooks' poems to form the final words in the lines of a new poem. The anthology is a great way to get acquainted with a wide range of contemporary poets or to revisit your favorite Gwendolyn Brooks poem. My poem in the anthology draws on a line from "Riders to the Blood-Red Wrath," which is not my favorite Brooks poem, but how I could I resist the lure of a line like "the national anthem vampires at the blood"? (And what is my favorite Brooks poem, you ask? Depends on the day, but "The Mother" and "Beverly Hills, Chicago" are probably the top two contenders.)
Hurrah for Laura Madeline Wiseman for editing Bared: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts. The anthology includes some of my favorite poets: Sarah A Chavez, Susanna Childress, Denise Duhamel, Leslie Adrienne Miller, Stacey Waite... Too many brilliant folks to name them all. I've got two poems in the anthology--about breasts, not bras. One's an oldie but goodie from The Body Is No Machine, and the other, "No Jeremiad," is brand new to the world.
Hosannas to Mary Ann Miller, editor of the new journal, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry , and Jeremy Schraffenberger, who interviewed me for the journal. Mary Ann was the force behind St. Peter's B-List: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints, and she was kind enough to think of me for this first issue of Presence. Jeremy's questions helped me to revisit the process of writing and revising No Confession, No Mass, and I suspect some of his questions about the efficacy of poetry as protest led me in the direction of the Inauguries.
And bravi to Mary Vermillion and all the folks at Mount Mercy University, who gave me such a warm welcome when I visited in April. Mary live-tweeted the Q&A, during which I read the first drafts of a couple of poems from No Confession, No Mass. The drafts were awful, but that was the point, and it was the first time I've ever read a shaggy early draft aloud to a room full of strangers. (I highly recommend it for its humbling properties.) Mary's colleague, Joe Sheller, wrote a generous blog post about the reading, as well as its aftermath, when I mistook Joe for a ghost. (It was a long day, and the students and I had been talking about paranormal investigators. Yes, let's blame it on that.) I also got to chat with Mary a bit about the memoir she co-wrote with her husband, Ben, about his gender transition, and I am eagerly awaiting its publication. Best of all, the students at Mount Mercy were thoughtful and inquisitive and bold--it was a true pleasure to talk with them. A few asked questions that prompted me to reveal my fears and qualms about writing non-fiction. (It turns out I'm fond of the veil, however thin, that fiction and poetry allow me to draw over my life.) But because I find it hard to refuse a challenge, especially a self-issued one, while I'm on my post-Inauguries mini-hiatus from poetry, I'm trying my hand at some essays on race. Time will tell whether I can get over my unease enough to send these out into the world, but for now, at least, the writing feels necessary and surprising, so I'll follow it where it takes me.
I still have a list of words I wanted to use--and Trump is picking up new favorite terms every day--but I'm happy that the 100 days are over. (If only the administration were as short-lived as this project was.) Maybe I'll revisit some of those other words at a later date, but for now I'm taking a much needed rest from poem-writing and turning instead to seeing whether the Inauguries have the making of a manuscript in them. It feels strange to try to split up and rearrange the poems into a book, but folks keep encouraging me to get these babies out beyond the blog, so I'm giving it a shot.
In the months since my last post, I've amassed quite the list of shout-outs that have remained shut-in while I was engrossed with writing the Inauguries. So, at long last...
Cheers to Peter Kahn, Ravi Shankar, and Patricia Smith, for editing The Golden Shovel Anthology: New Poems Honoring Gwendolyn Brooks. The anthology riffs on the Golden Shovel form created by Terrance Hayes, which borrows a line from one of Brooks' poems to form the final words in the lines of a new poem. The anthology is a great way to get acquainted with a wide range of contemporary poets or to revisit your favorite Gwendolyn Brooks poem. My poem in the anthology draws on a line from "Riders to the Blood-Red Wrath," which is not my favorite Brooks poem, but how I could I resist the lure of a line like "the national anthem vampires at the blood"? (And what is my favorite Brooks poem, you ask? Depends on the day, but "The Mother" and "Beverly Hills, Chicago" are probably the top two contenders.)
Hurrah for Laura Madeline Wiseman for editing Bared: Contemporary Poetry and Art on Bras and Breasts. The anthology includes some of my favorite poets: Sarah A Chavez, Susanna Childress, Denise Duhamel, Leslie Adrienne Miller, Stacey Waite... Too many brilliant folks to name them all. I've got two poems in the anthology--about breasts, not bras. One's an oldie but goodie from The Body Is No Machine, and the other, "No Jeremiad," is brand new to the world.
Hosannas to Mary Ann Miller, editor of the new journal, Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry , and Jeremy Schraffenberger, who interviewed me for the journal. Mary Ann was the force behind St. Peter's B-List: Contemporary Poems Inspired by the Saints, and she was kind enough to think of me for this first issue of Presence. Jeremy's questions helped me to revisit the process of writing and revising No Confession, No Mass, and I suspect some of his questions about the efficacy of poetry as protest led me in the direction of the Inauguries.
And bravi to Mary Vermillion and all the folks at Mount Mercy University, who gave me such a warm welcome when I visited in April. Mary live-tweeted the Q&A, during which I read the first drafts of a couple of poems from No Confession, No Mass. The drafts were awful, but that was the point, and it was the first time I've ever read a shaggy early draft aloud to a room full of strangers. (I highly recommend it for its humbling properties.) Mary's colleague, Joe Sheller, wrote a generous blog post about the reading, as well as its aftermath, when I mistook Joe for a ghost. (It was a long day, and the students and I had been talking about paranormal investigators. Yes, let's blame it on that.) I also got to chat with Mary a bit about the memoir she co-wrote with her husband, Ben, about his gender transition, and I am eagerly awaiting its publication. Best of all, the students at Mount Mercy were thoughtful and inquisitive and bold--it was a true pleasure to talk with them. A few asked questions that prompted me to reveal my fears and qualms about writing non-fiction. (It turns out I'm fond of the veil, however thin, that fiction and poetry allow me to draw over my life.) But because I find it hard to refuse a challenge, especially a self-issued one, while I'm on my post-Inauguries mini-hiatus from poetry, I'm trying my hand at some essays on race. Time will tell whether I can get over my unease enough to send these out into the world, but for now, at least, the writing feels necessary and surprising, so I'll follow it where it takes me.
February 27, 2017
Swingin' on the Front Porch, Swingin' on the Lawn
This is my last week in Johnson, Vermont, where the kind folks at the Vermont Studio Center have given me space to write and to be among other artists for the month of February. There's been much furious scribbling, broadening of horizons, and exchanging of ideas. (Also, a wee bit of carousing, a lot of laughter, heaps of good food, and a mid-winter bonfire. This place is luscious.)
The residency has given me encouragement to be braver and less polished with my poems, including the Inauguries, which have definitely begun to absorb the influence of this place and the people I've met here. Being away from home has also offered some necessary distance from stories and poems that I should have abandoned long ago. Darlings have been murdered! Drafts have been trashed! Let the new language come flooding in!
While I've been here, Unsplendid put out a new double issue, which includes a villanelle and a sonnet I wrote. Editor Doug Basford's preface is worth checking out for its thoughtful articulation of some of the relationships between politics and poetry.
Also, speaking of politics and poetry, the new issue of Rattle is out, and it features poems by civil servants--folks who've worked for the CIA, FDA, EPA, the Census Bureau--which just goes to show we poets are everywhere. I've got a poem in there, too, in the poets-not-affiliated-with-the-government section. I'll have to wait until I'm home to read the rest of the issue, but I can tell you my poem was inspired by a dream in which Death tried to serve me a pie. No lie.
The residency has given me encouragement to be braver and less polished with my poems, including the Inauguries, which have definitely begun to absorb the influence of this place and the people I've met here. Being away from home has also offered some necessary distance from stories and poems that I should have abandoned long ago. Darlings have been murdered! Drafts have been trashed! Let the new language come flooding in!
While I've been here, Unsplendid put out a new double issue, which includes a villanelle and a sonnet I wrote. Editor Doug Basford's preface is worth checking out for its thoughtful articulation of some of the relationships between politics and poetry.
Also, speaking of politics and poetry, the new issue of Rattle is out, and it features poems by civil servants--folks who've worked for the CIA, FDA, EPA, the Census Bureau--which just goes to show we poets are everywhere. I've got a poem in there, too, in the poets-not-affiliated-with-the-government section. I'll have to wait until I'm home to read the rest of the issue, but I can tell you my poem was inspired by a dream in which Death tried to serve me a pie. No lie.
February 7, 2017
The Friday Night Charades of Youth
I'm holed up at the Vermont Studio Center for a month, where I'm working on new poems, fiddling with some half-formed short stories, and marveling at the snow. (Much easier to marvel when I've got nowhere to go, when I'm just strolling through its glitter and waking to find how deep it's grown overnight.) I'm still writing Inauguries, too, and have discovered that those poems might be less about reclaiming language than about documenting the emotional terrain of this strange moment in our history. The poems have often taken a surreal turn, which feels apt--if fact and truth are questionable, I suppose reality is, too. And, especially in recent poems, I can't seem to get away from speaking from a collective voice. Who is this "we" that keeps appearing? As the Magic 8 Ball says, "Cannot predict now; Ask again later."
This moment feels unpredictable, but as Sarah Einstein and Sandra Gail Lambert point out in the editorial note to their online anthology, Older Queer Voices: The Intimacy of Survival, this isn't so much an unfamiliar world as "one we remembered well and had hoped was gone for good." Einstein and Lambert assembled the collection of writing by older queerfolk "to recreate the edifices of care and activism that we once constructed for ourselves and then perhaps abandoned because they were no longer needed." I'm grateful to have poems in the anthology; grateful to have made it to the age where I may be an "older" queer; grateful to have had friends, teachers, artists, and authors who gave me the strategies I needed to survive.
And speaking of survival, speaking of age: the folks at Silver Birch Press are running a poetry and prose series on their blog called "Me, At 17," that precarious time on the cusp of adulthood when so many of us learn what it means to outlive our childhood selves. I've got a poem there, too, and I'm excited that the series represents such a wide variety of experiences of that particular time in life. (Happy, too, to see so many LGBTQ authors in the series. Represent!) If you decide to check out the poem, you'll have the extra treat of getting to see what I looked like back in the '90s: Long hair. Penciled eyebrows. Impish glint in the eyes.
This moment feels unpredictable, but as Sarah Einstein and Sandra Gail Lambert point out in the editorial note to their online anthology, Older Queer Voices: The Intimacy of Survival, this isn't so much an unfamiliar world as "one we remembered well and had hoped was gone for good." Einstein and Lambert assembled the collection of writing by older queerfolk "to recreate the edifices of care and activism that we once constructed for ourselves and then perhaps abandoned because they were no longer needed." I'm grateful to have poems in the anthology; grateful to have made it to the age where I may be an "older" queer; grateful to have had friends, teachers, artists, and authors who gave me the strategies I needed to survive.
And speaking of survival, speaking of age: the folks at Silver Birch Press are running a poetry and prose series on their blog called "Me, At 17," that precarious time on the cusp of adulthood when so many of us learn what it means to outlive our childhood selves. I've got a poem there, too, and I'm excited that the series represents such a wide variety of experiences of that particular time in life. (Happy, too, to see so many LGBTQ authors in the series. Represent!) If you decide to check out the poem, you'll have the extra treat of getting to see what I looked like back in the '90s: Long hair. Penciled eyebrows. Impish glint in the eyes.
January 20, 2017
A Little More Before He Knows His Own
Today I began writing my way through the first 100 days of the Trump administration. For some time now, I've been collecting words that Trump uses too often, words that I once loved but now can hear only through his mouth, his voice. I want to feel the rich history of those words again. I want to remember what they used to mean. Today I began stealing that language back.
I'll keep writing an Inaugury every day until April 29. It feels a little risky, a little strange, to write a poem and immediately put it out into the world for anyone to read, but I also can't imagine a better time to summon up my pluck and weirdness.
A throw of the dice will never abolish chance, but it will help me remember how much this time we're living in is a gamble, is an opportunity. So, I'll be rolling the dice each morning to determine the line and syllable count for that day's poems. Dissent is not a game, but sometimes a magic bag of dice still comes in handy.
Today's poem is "Huge." If you're in need of a little more poetry in your day anytime in the next few months, swing by my website for more Inauguries. And in the meantime, if there are words you'd like to help me snatch back from Trump's mouth, leave them in the comments, and I'll add them to my list.
Peace and solidarity, y'all.
I'll keep writing an Inaugury every day until April 29. It feels a little risky, a little strange, to write a poem and immediately put it out into the world for anyone to read, but I also can't imagine a better time to summon up my pluck and weirdness.
A throw of the dice will never abolish chance, but it will help me remember how much this time we're living in is a gamble, is an opportunity. So, I'll be rolling the dice each morning to determine the line and syllable count for that day's poems. Dissent is not a game, but sometimes a magic bag of dice still comes in handy.
Today's poem is "Huge." If you're in need of a little more poetry in your day anytime in the next few months, swing by my website for more Inauguries. And in the meantime, if there are words you'd like to help me snatch back from Trump's mouth, leave them in the comments, and I'll add them to my list.
Peace and solidarity, y'all.
January 2, 2017
People I Know, Places I Go, Make Me Feel Tongue-Tied
As I wave adieu to a year that was both terrible and colorful, the books that I read are, as always, the little souvenirs that I'm happy to be carrying with me into 2017. (Well, books and a mental soundtrack that includes The Sundays, apparently.) I read a little less than usual this year, but most of the books that I did read wowed me. My favorite discoveries of 2016 include:
...And those were just the highlights of my year in books.
I've got to thank Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge for pushing me to read outside of my usual boundaries. I only heard about it in September, so didn't quite complete all the challenges, but it's a new year, and they've announced the 2017 challenge. I am, of course, digging all the encouragement to read more books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, but for me, the biggest challenge on the list is the first one: Read a book about sports. (I just picked up Forward: A Memoir, though, so maybe not so tough after all...)
As for the writing in 2016, most of my attention was focused on fiction, and I just started sending out short stories. One of them, "Grief Sequence," was an honorable mention for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, which is encouraging, although it feels strange to be a "new writer" all over again. But in truth, when it comes to fiction, that's what I am.
I'm happy to say that as the year came to a close, the poetry bug bit me again--or, more accurately, poetry started kicking me in the ass and reminding me to get back to where my real work is. I've embarked on a long sonnet sequence that I'm hoping to finish in February, thanks to a residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
But before that wraps up, I'll be starting another writing project. Like so many other writers, I've been trying to find ever more ways to respond to and resist white supremacy and sexism, especially as they've manifested themselves in Trump's campaign and election. As we head into these next four years, I want to make sure not to lose hope, to remember the power that rests in the reclamation of language that's been used to oppress. So, each day for the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, I'll be writing an "Inaugury," a poem or essay that attempts to scry the signs of the times, to reinterpret language that's been misused, and to remember that this period is a new beginning for all of us. I'll be posting the poems on my website starting on January 20th.
Until then: Here's to the end of the story that was 2016 and to cracking the spine on 2017.
Poetry
For Love of Common Words: Poems, Steve Scafidi
Late Wife, Claudia Emerson
Seam, Tarfia Faizullah
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, Ross Gay
Dear Leader, Damian Rogers
Lost Alphabet, Lisa Olstein
lore, Davis McCombs
Look, Solmaz Sharif
Nonfiction
M Train, Patti Smith
Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, Carrie Brownstein
H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald
On the Move: A Life, Oliver Sacks
The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction, Neil Gaiman
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War, Mary Roach
This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, Ann Patchett
When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi
The Invisible Orientation: An Introduction to Asexuality, Julie Sondra Decker
In the Darkroom, Susan Faludi
The Joy of Swimming: A Celebration of Our Love for Getting in the Water, Lisa Congdon
Journal of a Solitude, May Sarton
Comics
Step Aside, Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection, Kate Beaton
Hark! A Vagrant, Kate Beaton
The Absolute Sandman, Volume Four, Neil Gaiman
Fiction
The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson
The Brides of Rollrock Island, Margo Lanagan
I Sailed with Magellan, Stuart Dybek
LaRose, Louise Erdrich
A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara
Native Son, Richard Wright
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
When Are You Coming Home?, Bryn Chancellor
Hag-Seed, Margaret Atwood
The Intuitionist, Colson Whitehead
The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead
Genre-Busters
Her 37th Year, An Index, Suzanne Scanlon
Artful, Ali Smith
...And those were just the highlights of my year in books.
I've got to thank Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge for pushing me to read outside of my usual boundaries. I only heard about it in September, so didn't quite complete all the challenges, but it's a new year, and they've announced the 2017 challenge. I am, of course, digging all the encouragement to read more books by and about LGBTQ+ people and people of color, but for me, the biggest challenge on the list is the first one: Read a book about sports. (I just picked up Forward: A Memoir, though, so maybe not so tough after all...)
As for the writing in 2016, most of my attention was focused on fiction, and I just started sending out short stories. One of them, "Grief Sequence," was an honorable mention for Glimmer Train's Short Story Award for New Writers, which is encouraging, although it feels strange to be a "new writer" all over again. But in truth, when it comes to fiction, that's what I am.
I'm happy to say that as the year came to a close, the poetry bug bit me again--or, more accurately, poetry started kicking me in the ass and reminding me to get back to where my real work is. I've embarked on a long sonnet sequence that I'm hoping to finish in February, thanks to a residency at the Vermont Studio Center.
But before that wraps up, I'll be starting another writing project. Like so many other writers, I've been trying to find ever more ways to respond to and resist white supremacy and sexism, especially as they've manifested themselves in Trump's campaign and election. As we head into these next four years, I want to make sure not to lose hope, to remember the power that rests in the reclamation of language that's been used to oppress. So, each day for the first 100 days of Trump's presidency, I'll be writing an "Inaugury," a poem or essay that attempts to scry the signs of the times, to reinterpret language that's been misused, and to remember that this period is a new beginning for all of us. I'll be posting the poems on my website starting on January 20th.
Until then: Here's to the end of the story that was 2016 and to cracking the spine on 2017.
November 2, 2016
Please Excuse These Rags I'm In
The folks over at Rogue Agent have put together an amazing issue of work by queer people and people of color. The poems and art in Don't Erase Us resist violence against queer, black, and brown bodies. Thanks to Jill Khoury and Jen Stein for putting together such a necessary collection and for including my work in it. And if you, Goodreader, are a poet or artist who explores race, gender, sexuality, body image, dis/ability, or any other subject matter that deals with the body, please consider sending your work to Rogue Agent. They're good people.
And, on another note: This weekend is Wordstock, Portland's Book Festival. Chances are, if you're in the area, you've probably heard about all the phenomenal authors who will be on-stage. I'm particularly looking forward to Colson Whitehead's discussion with Yaa Gyasi about the legacy of slavery in the U.S., as well as a panel on poetry and the personal with Brenda Shaughnessy, Melissa Broder, and Jennifer Grotz. And, of course, Carrie Brownstein, because Sleater-Kinney will always occupy a little nook in my punk-rock heart. If you'll be at Wordstock and want a break from the big events, I'll be performing a pop-up reading as part of the festival at 10:15am. You can find me in the European Art gallery of the Portland Art Museum, next to the painting of Saint Mary Magdalene by Giampietrino. Wander through the gallery, stop to listen, and stick around to talk and ask questions about ointment jars and female saints. (I can promise great stories about the latter... Perhaps not so much about the former.)
And, on another note: This weekend is Wordstock, Portland's Book Festival. Chances are, if you're in the area, you've probably heard about all the phenomenal authors who will be on-stage. I'm particularly looking forward to Colson Whitehead's discussion with Yaa Gyasi about the legacy of slavery in the U.S., as well as a panel on poetry and the personal with Brenda Shaughnessy, Melissa Broder, and Jennifer Grotz. And, of course, Carrie Brownstein, because Sleater-Kinney will always occupy a little nook in my punk-rock heart. If you'll be at Wordstock and want a break from the big events, I'll be performing a pop-up reading as part of the festival at 10:15am. You can find me in the European Art gallery of the Portland Art Museum, next to the painting of Saint Mary Magdalene by Giampietrino. Wander through the gallery, stop to listen, and stick around to talk and ask questions about ointment jars and female saints. (I can promise great stories about the latter... Perhaps not so much about the former.)
.
September 26, 2016
A Slip of the Tongue Is Gonna Keep Me Civilian
Last week, I got to hear Ann Patchett read from her new book, Commonwealth. More importantly--since I would have read a new Ann Patchett novel no matter what--I got to hear her thoughts about how she's been writing the same story over and over for twenty-odd years, her advice on writing what you're afraid to write, and her recommendations of must-read books.
Many of her suggestions came from the list that she compiled as she completed the 2016 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. Because I'm forever hopelessly behind the times, I hadn't heard of the challenge, but I love the idea of encouraging folks to read not just more but also more broadly.
So, challenge accepted, Book Riot! I combed through the list and discovered that my eclectic reading habits have already taken me through most of the challenge, with a few gaps yet to be filled in by books that are awaiting me on my IRL to-read shelf.
However, in some categories, I came up empty. Goodreaders, help me up my game! If you've read something amazing that was: a) set in the Middle East; b) historical fiction set before 1900; c) a non-superhero comic that debuted in the last three years; d) a book that was adapted into an equally amazing movie; or e) a food memoir, please let me know!
Many of her suggestions came from the list that she compiled as she completed the 2016 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. Because I'm forever hopelessly behind the times, I hadn't heard of the challenge, but I love the idea of encouraging folks to read not just more but also more broadly.
So, challenge accepted, Book Riot! I combed through the list and discovered that my eclectic reading habits have already taken me through most of the challenge, with a few gaps yet to be filled in by books that are awaiting me on my IRL to-read shelf.
However, in some categories, I came up empty. Goodreaders, help me up my game! If you've read something amazing that was: a) set in the Middle East; b) historical fiction set before 1900; c) a non-superhero comic that debuted in the last three years; d) a book that was adapted into an equally amazing movie; or e) a food memoir, please let me know!
September 19, 2016
Never Was a Cloudy Day
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.
September 12, 2016
We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon
I've been living in Portland all of two weeks now and am still learning how to navigate the city, figuring out how to make my new apartment feel like home, and exclaiming at every unfamiliar flower I find on my evening walks. (Truly. I'm sure the neighbors find it obnoxious, but I can't help it.) Especially since I'm such a newbie, I was excited to be invited to take part in Wordstock, Portland's Book Festival. I'll be giving a pop-up reading among the paintings and sculptures in the Portland Art Museum on November 5th. If you'll be in the area, please stop by and say hello!
Also, I've got new poems out in the world! Shinjini Bhattacharjee, editor of Hermeneutic Chaos, was kind enough to publish two of my poems--both, I suppose, about family--in the September issue. You can check them out on the journal's website, and while you're there, if you've got poems of your own, consider entering the Jane Lumley Prize. (It's free, so why not?)
Also, I've got new poems out in the world! Shinjini Bhattacharjee, editor of Hermeneutic Chaos, was kind enough to publish two of my poems--both, I suppose, about family--in the September issue. You can check them out on the journal's website, and while you're there, if you've got poems of your own, consider entering the Jane Lumley Prize. (It's free, so why not?)
