It’s hard to believe we’ve made it past the midway point of 2021, but here we are, close to turning the corner into Fall.
Meanwhile, our determined members have continued to send their beautiful, provocative, insightful work into the world and publish it. This month we’re celebrating the WWS members whose work was published during July 2021. I’ve included an excerpt from their published pieces (if available) or a blurb if the publication is a book, and a link (if available) to where the pieces can be purchased and/or read in their entirety.
Let’s celebrate our members who published in July!
Congratulations to Isabella Rose, who published her poetic memoir Behind the Masked Smile: A Survivor’s Quest for Love this month. Says Jessica Lucci, author of Steampunk Pride, of Behind the Mask,
This book of personal essays and poetry following the incredible transitional life of the author is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and offers hope where there seems to be none.
Congratulations also to Ashunda Norris, whose poems “for Jair” from “Self Portrait as Teacher Burnout” and “lowndes county, georgia 1918” appeared in the #37-37 Spring/Summer 2021 issue of Fence.
A shout out to Ruth Kogen Goodwin, whose essay “Don’t Be Foodshamed” appeared in The Dirty Spoon.
Tonight, I made a hearty, comforting chicken soup. I mixed pre-cut vegetables, boxed chicken broth, dried ground seasonings, packaged pasta, and deboned chicken pieces in my Instant Pot, sealed the lid, and pressed start. Along with an easy-to-assemble bagged salad mix and some rolls, I fed my family dinner.
Recently, a viral Tweet disparaged these sorts of pre-prepared “convenience” ingredients—specifically bottled lemon juice, generic table salt, Kraft parmesan cheese, and jarred minced garlic. Apparently, these are the hallmarks of a poor cook. Thousands of people liked the tweet, including popular Twitter personality, cookbook author, and cookware purveyor Chrissy Teigen, who felt it wise to retweet her agreement to her millions of followers.
And a shout out to Noriko Nakada, whose poem “Letters for My Father” appeared in Discovering Nikkei.
Letter 1
Hey Dad,
I’m writing to you
before
in green coveralls
working a garden with rows perfectly engineered for surface irrigation
or wearing a red, orange, and yellow 70s style ski hat
the one you wore well into the 90s
when you critiqued the world and all of its goings on
with mechanical pencil precision
like the one you kept in your shirt pocket
next to the skinny white worm of a retractable click eraser
tools used to precisely construct and erase:
lists, letters, words, thoughts.
Kudos to Ashley Perez, whose excerpt from her memoir “The In-Between” was published by Catapult.
There is a photo I have of myself at the age of fourteen. It shows me from the back as I am looking over my shoulder. I am wearing oversized black Dickie pants and my friend’s satin red corset. To complete the ensemble, I have elbow length red fishnet arm warmers and one of my early attempts at eyeliner. The eyeliner doesn’t look like it belongs on a high school girl. It looks like it belongs on Jerry Only from the punk band The Misfits. My brown hair reaches past my hips in a mass of split ends.
Congrats also to Carla Sameth, whose personal essay “This is What I Want You to Know” appeared in Mutha Magazine.
Thirty years later you won’t remember the room. You’ll remember the protesters outside and how your sister growled at them, holding onto you, hustling you into the clinic. You’ll remember how she tried to distract you by showing you how she organized her wallet (you still have to organize your own, over and over again, what is that phenomenon—the second law of thermodynamics—where things revert to disorder). For a moment you’ll feel ordered. Then your gut swirls and your thoughts return to disarray.
Carla’s poem “The View Changes” also appeared in Sledgehammer.
I tell people I’m an 18- year-old butch, a boi, trapped in my 58- year-old body,
or a 20- something year old, sober young man, like my son’s friends in recovery
that gather around him on his 21st birthday. Then I too can say things like cool as fuck
or even be that—cool as fuck. One of my son’s young friends, a girl, says oh look
your mom she’s such a mom so cool so beautiful. Tells me, I’ve wanted to meet you.
Congratulations to Valerie Anne Burns, whose personal essay “He’s On Top of the World and I’m Not” appeared in Libretto’s Temptation issue.
While staring through the screen door into the late afternoon spring light dancing on leaves, I fell into a quiet zone. On an oversized sofa in my charming, rustic post-divorce cottage, I sat and reflected on how I’d been running on pure adrenaline. I’d been lying awake in a restless state for four nights with worry through long hours in the dark while adding up debts, listing ways to keep my business going, to pay rent, and find love. There was an Italian whose fervent kisses provided distraction and made me feel alive when not much else did.
And congrats to Soleil Davíd, whose article “Punishment is Coming: On Mieko Kawakami’s ‘Heaven'” appeared in the LA Review of Books.
In Mieko Kawakami’s 2009 novel Heaven, now available from Europa Editions in an English translation by Sam Bett and David Boyd, the Akutagawa Prize–winning author of Breasts and Eggs (2008; Europa Editions, 2020) turns her eye toward the sufferings and cruelties of adolescence.
Kudos to Elline Lipkin, whose review of Genevieve Kaplan’s poetry collection (aviary) appeared in Taylor Francis Online.
Until recently, I had never heard of the phrase “clapback poem.” I finally learned this refers to a poem written in response to another poem – either by answering it, springboarding from it, or responding to some provocation within the original work. Poems of homage (often marked by the epigraph “after … ”) have long been a tradition in poetry, but “clapback” frames this kind of writing with contemporary gravitas.
Genevieve Kaplan’s latest collection can be identified, generally, in this category, as she comments in (aviary)’s “Process Note” that her volume was largely inspired by Mina Loy’s poem “Ladies in an Aviary” which, she writes, “leapt onto my desk to suggest itself as an organizing principle, a happy coincidence, a difficult imagination, a devastating image.”
Congrats also to Ruth Camillia, whose personal essay “Sanctuary Self” appeared in Sacrosanct.
Sometimes I feel my feelings so hard it makes me want to stir up prolific thoughts and document it with hopes of channeling poetic grace and charm.
I’m inspired by the feeling of falling in love with a city for the first time. I understand why people feel so compelled to leave a life they once knew for promise in a place they don’t know yet.
I feel this way about people.
Finally, congrats to Xochitl-Julisa Bermejo, whose six love poems appeared in A Dozen Nothing. The first is “Love Poem of Comfort.”
Let me knit lines
like a blanket,
sew pages
for a book, boil
caldo long enough
to soothe the chest.
The second is “Love Poem for the Caretaker.”
By night, the ZZ plant dreams
of embraces & midnight kisses.
By day, its leaves plant
open palms to a window.
The third is “Love Poem of Meditation.”
. : . : . : Sunshine & glass wash a breakfast table magnificent : . : . : . : . : . : . : .
: . : like your very own Sagrada Familia. : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . : . :
The fourth is “Love Poem for the Teacher.”
If the farthest I travel from you
is the closest I come to nature,
then distance is a blessing,
time a balloon, love a wetland.
The fifth is “Love Poem of Home.”
You, my friend, are cosmic
earth, stars, & onions.
The Empress’s tree blooming
pink foliage, & you glow.
The sixth is “Love Poem of History.”
What gives
comfort to
the jagged
edges?
“Friends
basking in
literary goodness.”