Meet Our New Intern: Saturn Browne

Hi! I’m Saturn, and I’m so honored and excited to be an editorial intern! A little about me: I’m a Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant to the U.S., a Taurus and ENFJ, and I currently study in Connecticut as a prospective Comparative Literature and ??? (TBD) major. In my free time, I like to create graphics and websites as a means of self-expression, boil maple syrup, drink iced coffee, DJ techno music, visit art galleries/museums/aquariums, and consume an absurd amount of content—books, films, video essays, old albums only discoverable on YouTube, UI/UX tutorials, personal blogs, you name it. This sense of media also pervades my interests and my mind when I write: much of what I produce has been ekphrasis, and I see it as a form that elevates writing to new levels. I also write a lot about bodies of water, love, and grief, and it can be seen through my chapbook BLOODPATHS (Kith Books, 2023), and my work-in-progress project EMPRESS OF LONGING (book about my situationships that have destroyed me). 

The world does not end when you’re seventeen. I knew this when I began writing, yet, at the same time, it does not feel that way for me. When I began writing a few years ago, I had no idea where this practice would take me, and it’s brought me so much wonderful people and things into my life, and I can’t imagine where I’d be otherwise.

I’m currently a senior in high school (hello youngest Sundress intern title!), and entering college next year. Life, for me, has barely begun, yet I also feel that I have experienced enough for a lifetime. Since my sophomore year, I’ve always been the youngest person at poetry commitments, online internships, activism spaces, and more. It’s challenged me in the way that I’ve had to work twice as hard to gain the respect of my peers, yet the feeling of my voice being heard has become much, much more valuable.

I began writing at a time of self-crisis and discovery, yet I’ve been reading for years before. Growing up in southern China, I found myself learning about the world through novels and websites, and when I moved to America, the language barriers fueled my urge to understand my surroundings even further. 

It makes sense, then, why I take so much inspiration from other teen-into-adult poets, and especially writers who are also queer and Asian, such as Kaylee Jeong, Stephanie Chang (both of which were undress interns and helped me find this opportunity), K-Ming Chang, Jennie Xie, Alexander Chee and others. I also find inspiration from pieces of art which honestly document human experiences—Tracy Emin’s My Bed, Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Portrait of Ross in L.A., On Kawara’s Today series, for example—and art galleries highlighting marginalized voices and communities from around the world. When I began writing, I’d hoped to channel something similar: by using my experiences as queer, immigrant, FGLI, and more, I wanted to speak to others and let them know their experiences and identities do not make them alone.

My offer at Sundress meant that I could work on becoming the platform to elevate these same artists I admired for most of my life, and be a part of the community which made their voices matter. Whether it be through helping put together PR for manuscripts or writing reviews and interviews highlighting smaller authors, I hope to work and uncover more such voices of intersectionality at Sundress, and bring them to more budding writers like myself. 

Saturn Browne (she/they) is a Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant and the Connecticut Youth Poet Laureate, East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU) Artist-in-Residence, and the author of BLOODPATHS. Her work has been recognized by Gone Lawn, GASHER, Beaver Mag, the Pulitzer Center, Foyle Young Poets, and others. She is an incoming undergraduate student at Yale University.

Sundress Reads: Review of Lanternfly August

Before I picked up Robin Gow’s Lanternfly August (Driftwood Press 2023), I couldn’t imagine a rich, in depth fascination with lanternflies, or any bug, for that matter. Gow’s exploration of the oft overlooked, the things so carelessly crushed and destroyed for being invasive, invited me to see them, instead of just stamping out that which is different or other. Lanternfly August a fascinating entry into his body of work as a proud and prolific queer author, well-versed in the poetic canon in which he
belongs.

I love noticing moments of deception in poetry. Often the speaker hides a deeper meaning underneath their lines, and is strategic when revealing truths; Gow makes this look really easy. For example, in “Ant Trap,” it writes, “I / promise you, I know what it means to crave” (78). At a casual glance, you can see it knows its stuff (and it’s showing off a bit!). He is a well-studied poet, as is evident in the way he weaves multiple different styles into the collection. There’s a ghazal, an elegy, an aubade, and a handful of visually experimental poems that are just loads of fun to twist your head around to read. In an era where the merit and utility of the MFA is constantly and hotly debated in journals and on Reddit alike, it is nice to see a clear answer: Gow knows its craft so well, and you can tell because it’s practiced and polished in a way that can only be achieved through the sort of sanding down that an MFA program provides.

As a result, countless moments in these pages tugged at my heart while I read. In “Yard Sale,” Gow writes,

“For a few dollars

I will let you own the faint smell of my mother and

a quilt that comes alive at night and tries to heal you

with spoonfuls of olive oil. Then, also, the wall clock

only capable of announcing afternoons.” (77)

Here, Gow retreats slightly from the conceit of lanternflies, opting instead to dwell in a more casual entomophilia. It refers to the offerings in the yard sale as cradled “armfuls of species” and clothing from its past life as its mother’s daughter as dresses with “moth winged shoulders” (Gow 77) The suggestion of insect, of other, inserts this work in a larger conversation, without feeling shoehorned into an obscure subject matter.

We are treated to gorgeous existentialism in “Lanternfly Futurity.” Gow writes, “Tomorrow we will all be born again in a bowl of sugar. Will I still be / beautiful without my hunger?” (76). This is the heart of Lanternfly August, as we finally reach the place readers have been circling throughout the first half of the collection. Gow continues: “To be a lanternfly is to forget the future while somehow living / inside it” (76). Here, fae touches on so many of the central points of the book but, primarily, what it means to be trans to this author.

This specific poem teases out that feeling many of us artists have stowed away deep: the need to always reinvent the present self, to always be one step ahead. When Gow questions, “will I still be beautiful without my hunger?”, I hear, will I still be beautiful on the other side of the need to always reinvent myself as a person, as an artist? Further, when I have achieve accolades, and the need to earn a place in the artistic canon wanes (because I am there), will my work still be as good? As necessary? With Lanternfly August, Gow reaches beyond the confines of his pages in this work, took all of our hands, and said: I see you.

An important aspect of poetry, but specifically queer poetry, is an inherent act of defiance (perhaps even activism). By its very existence, and that of its author, queer poetry dares to be present and take up space. That being said, defiance can be messy, and can leave behind wounds in its wake. Always having to stand up and be present in spaces that aren’t always welcoming can be daunting, scarring. After healing, will I still be beautiful? It’s a heavy question to undertake, and yet Gow asks in such a plain matter that if you blink, you’ll miss it. Slotted in as the second sentence in this work — not the first — makes it an easy strike to miss, and yet this only demonstrates the author’s tactical skill and love for the artform.

Lanternfly August is available at Driftwood Press

Sierra Farrare, a skilled self-published author with an MFA in Creative Writing & Publishing Arts, proudly calls Baltimore her home. With an enduring passion for storytelling and a keen eye for detail, she can turn even people-watching into an extreme sport. When she’s not crafting her next piece, she can be found meticulously organizing her workspace or dissecting niche pop culture theories.

Project Bookshelf: Caitlin Mulqueen

I do not just have a love for reading, but a love for books as well—the physical embodiment of the story in paperback form is my favorite, but I don’t mind a hardcover either. I admire the people who do not walk through life with back pain and bad posture because they are content with a kindle or ebook. I, however, am not that type of person. To me, my bookshelves stand almost like a work of art.

I am currently a senior in college, but when I return to my childhood home for breaks, I always look at my first bookshelf as the truest masterpiece I have ever curated.

“The Masterpiece” has been read many times over. It is four rows, stuffed without order, to hold 98 books. In addition to literature, there is a shocking amount of dust and trinkets (seashells, a high school diploma, the original box from the box set of The Selection series, etc.). Of course, the centerpiece is a hardcover set of all seven Harry Potter books.

“The Masterpiece” carries stories that strictly happen “in a land far, far away.” It is littered with magic, superpowers, and world-saving teenagers that possess some sort of extraordinary ability that they were unaware of until the first, maybe second, chapter of this trilogy (it was always a trilogy). There are diamonds in the rough, here, that have withstood the test of early adulthood (Red Queen, Cruel Prince, Percy Jackson, The Hunger Games), but the majority of them are books that you only realize are unintentionally hilarious upon forethought. This recognition only makes it more amazing and magical that I held them so close to my heart, and with such sincere care as a kid. 

A moment that is not rare amongst those who love books is the moment you realize that you need another bookshelf. Mine did not come to me, but rather to my mom, no longer delighted with books splayed across various random surfaces. Thus, I was gifted two more bookshelves to reel in the damage, and they are towering. 

Half way through filling up one shelf, I suppose I was no longer satiated by tales of magic and happy endings. Mysteries, contemporaries, biographies, and historical fiction are stacked towards the bottom. They are all sun bleached, the borders yellowed, the covers lighter, and the pages softer. This is because when I was 16 I got my first job as a lifeguard. The change in genre preference most likely came as a result of me not wanting to explain to my coworkers that I was on the seventh book in a nine part series about fairy warriors overthrowing the corrupt fairy government in a fantastical land, that is actually part of a much broader fictional universe, when they casually asked me “What are you reading?” For all parties involved, it was much easier and more normal to answer, “Michelle Obama’s memoir.” And so, my bookshelf began to be filled with realistic fiction, and even nonfiction (a concept that would have made fifteen-year-old me shudder with boredom).

The books that I read as a sweating, miserable, and overly dramatic high schooler, sitting in 100 degree heat at my first job, are stacked together in unity and remembrance of that time. Paper Towns by John Green became an important book to me that summer because the concept of a literal paper town encouraged—and gave importance to—my feeling that fiction could be powerful, and that it had the ability to embed itself into reality. The story took place in a suburb of Florida, and I, as the characters, grew up in a suburb in Florida and wanted more than it could offer me. 

Deciding which books to bring to my first semester of college was a month-long thought process. Should I bring just the ones that I haven’t read yet? Should I bring the ones that I know I love so things can feel a little bit more like home? Should I trust the library and pack sparingly; it’s hard to move everything you need for college in the first place? 

I cannot even describe the emotional toll that leaving the Twilight series behind took on me. I would bring it back with me after I came home for winter break because me and Edward Cullen just could not spend another semester apart.

As I said, college complicates life for a book lover because your books exist in a sort of liminal space—some come with you, some stay back, some are acquired here, there, in airports, on road trips, and then you bring them home to your childhood bedroom and just start stacking.

When I look at my bookshelf at home, I think of where I was when I read it: physically, mentally, what my favorite song was, where I started the book, where I finished it, what it meant to me back then and what it means to me now. I am reinvigorate with reading, reminded of the many ways these books have changed me, and reminded why I came to love reading in the first place. 

When I look at the stacks of books I have in my college apartment, compared to the ones I grew up surrounded by, I see that I now read to understand the world around me, rather than to take a break from it.

I suppose that is what growing up is, and I suppose my shelves, stacks, and piles of stories tell a bit of a story about me. For that, I am content with the back pain that carrying a book gives me, and will continue to avoid the temptation of the ever-appealing ebooks. 

Caitlin Mulqueen is a senior at the University of Tennessee majoring in English and Journalism. She loves reading, playing piano, watching sports, and the Oxford comma. She has worked as an Editorial Graphics Production intern at ESPN, is a copy editor at The Daily Beacon, a student writer for Tennessee Athletics, a graphics and video operator for the SEC Network, and a marketing/social media intern for the Knoxville Ice Bears. With the majority of her undergraduate work being in sports media, literary media has remained her sincerest passion, finding stories that come out of sports to be as moving as those from literature.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: baby, sweetheart, honey by Emily Perkovich

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from baby, sweetheart, honey by Emily Perkovich (Alien Buddha Press 2023).

I Write Myself Into Your Shoes
And Change The Setting

I come to in the thick of it
Find you face down in flooded fields
I imagine you as me

we’re face to face mixing breath, we’re skin to skin mixing signals, I brush 
fingers on hips, watch the way your words come out whispered in the negative, 
know this is the moment when things snap, you’re on the ground as I push my 
heel into neck, limbs scrambling as I roll you stomach-bound, press my palm 
to back of head, you’re screaming, and I’m watching the mud fill the gaps in 
your teeth, watching browned grass catch in your throat, I laugh, call you 
water-logged, dig a trench across you, spike your spine, till the surface

I come to in the thick of it
Open the window on the scene
Flash freeze the field
You bleed dirt from all your holes
Scream again for an ending

Emily Perkovich is from the Chicago-land area. She is the Editor in Chief of Querencia Press and on the Women in Leadership Advisory Board with Valparaiso University. Her work strives to erase the stigma surrounding trauma victims and their responses. She is a Best of the Net nominee and a SAFTA scholarship recipient. She is previously published with Harness Magazine, Rogue Agent, Coffin Bell Journal, and Awakenings, among others. She is the author of the poetry collections Godshots Wanted: Apply Within (Sunday Mornings at the River), The Number 12 Looks Just Like You (Finishing Line Press), & baby, sweetheart, honey (Alien Buddha Press) as well as the novella Swallow. You can find more of her work on IG


Layla Lenhardt (she/they) is an American poet. She is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the (currently on hiatus) national literary journal 1932 Quarterly. Her essays, poems, short prose, and interviews have been published across various types of media, including a pickle jar, a post card, and a bathroom stall in Dublin. She is a 2021 Best of the Net Nominee and was a judge for Poetry Super Highway’s Annual Contest in 2022. Her first full-length poetry collection, Mother Tongue, was published by Main Street Rag Publications (2023). She is a 2022 alumna of the SAFTA residency.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: baby, sweetheart, honey by Emily Perkovich

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from baby, sweetheart, honey by Emily Perkovich (Alien Buddha Press 2023).

5

you named me mother, and i was naïve enough to watch you slit the
throat of the one who birthed you, to burn the one who raised you,
yet still imagine i’d teach you table manners, i nursed you through
your tongue-tie, let your gums gnash nipples raw, i never saw it
coming, the way you’d refuse to wipe your mouth as i watched
myself drip down your chin, how you’d claim you’d kissed teeth

Emily Perkovich is from the Chicago-land area. She is the Editor in Chief of Querencia Press and on the Women in Leadership Advisory Board with Valparaiso University. Her work strives to erase the stigma surrounding trauma victims and their responses. She is a Best of the Net nominee and a SAFTA scholarship recipient. She is previously published with Harness Magazine, Rogue Agent, Coffin Bell Journal, and Awakenings, among others. She is the author of the poetry collections Godshots Wanted: Apply Within (Sunday Mornings at the River), The Number 12 Looks Just Like You (Finishing Line Press), & baby, sweetheart, honey (Alien Buddha Press) as well as the novella Swallow. You can find more of her work on IG


Layla Lenhardt (she/they) is an American poet. She is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the (currently on hiatus) national literary journal 1932 Quarterly. Her essays, poems, short prose, and interviews have been published across various types of media, including a pickle jar, a post card, and a bathroom stall in Dublin. She is a 2021 Best of the Net Nominee and was a judge for Poetry Super Highway’s Annual Contest in 2022. Her first full-length poetry collection, Mother Tongue, was published by Main Street Rag Publications (2023). She is a 2022 alumna of the SAFTA residency.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: baby, sweetheart, honey by Emily Perkovich

This selection, chosen by guest editor Layla Lenhardt, is from baby, sweetheart, honey by Emily Perkovich (Alien Buddha Press 2023).

False Advertising

/two inches below thighs/whole inch above fingertips/

this is the hot spot where we tattoo our women with “take me, if hem falls 
above this line” just under the intersection of “asking for it” & “open for 
business”

/if you need a visual, drop a pin an inch south of “property of men”/

because someone marked the whole goddamn vessel as “for sale” at birth.

your male-god pulled me from ribcage, so it’s only natural for you to prod and 
poke/to dig your fingers into the wet earth of me/when you need a reminder 
of what it feels like to breathe.

/don’t forget you still need a woman to teach you to breathe/

to be born in these bodies is to be made an open invitation, rsvp unnecessary. 
because when you crowned, they took you from the throne of your mother and 
handed you off to man. and somehow, as mothers, we still haven’t learned to 
believe the abducted. we still think the wanted poster a lie. we still think the 
missing will be found.

/to be born a woman, is to be born missing/

do you remember when your god didn’t believe you about the snake?

do you remember what it’s like when no one believes you?

Emily Perkovich is from the Chicago-land area. She is the Editor in Chief of Querencia Press and on the Women in Leadership Advisory Board with Valparaiso University. Her work strives to erase the stigma surrounding trauma victims and their responses. She is a Best of the Net nominee and a SAFTA scholarship recipient. She is previously published with Harness Magazine, Rogue Agent, Coffin Bell Journal, and Awakenings, among others. She is the author of the poetry collections Godshots Wanted: Apply Within (Sunday Mornings at the River), The Number 12 Looks Just Like You (Finishing Line Press), & baby, sweetheart, honey (Alien Buddha Press) as well as the novella Swallow. You can find more of her work on IG


Layla Lenhardt (she/they) is an American poet. She is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the (currently on hiatus) national literary journal 1932 Quarterly. Her essays, poems, short prose, and interviews have been published across various types of media, including a pickle jar, a post card, and a bathroom stall in Dublin. She is a 2021 Best of the Net Nominee and was a judge for Poetry Super Highway’s Annual Contest in 2022. Her first full-length poetry collection, Mother Tongue, was published by Main Street Rag Publications (2023). She is a 2022 alumna of the SAFTA residency.

Project Bookshelf: Hedaya Hasan

A bookshelf holds tea and books in front of a while wall with vinyl and art. Various decor surrounds the shelf.

These days, I try to visit libraries more than bookstores, but the damage to my wallet has already been done. The books I own are easily the most valuable thing in my home, both monetarily and emotionally. Though, remembering my brother’s complaints about the heaviness of my boxes while helping me move, I doubt I will come home one day to find a thief has stolen my books. Some of my books are below my tea collection on the shelf pictured above. Others are in odd places in my apartment. A few have taken a permanent place in my tote bags or near my bed. Most of my books were bought used and hold small reminders of their previous owners; old plane tickets, receipts, stickers, photos. When I finally sat down to read Edward Said’s memoir, twenty dollars silently slipped out of its pages and into my lap. Some books are well-loved, others not so much. Most of the books bought after a recommendation from a teacher or friend fall into the latter category, but maybe I’m just a picky reader. Other books I bought before being recommended them, namely Claudia Rankine’s Citizen and All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks. One professor excitedly told me about a Palestinian play being shown at a local theater, which turned out to be a playbook I already owned: The Shroud Maker by Ahmad Masoud.

A close up of books on a shelf.
A copy of Tar Baby by Toni Morrison with a pomegranate flower and signature on the title page.

Despite not writing much fiction myself, fiction is what I consume the most of. I cannot rave enough about The Beauty of Your Face by Sahar Mustafa, but my favorite book is The Blue Between Sky and Water by Susan Abulhawa. It isn’t Abulhawa’s most popular book by any means, but I’ve yet to find another work of art that has moved me the same way, though her other books have also brought tears to my eyes. My poetry collection collects the most dust. I do love (most) of my poetry books very dearly, but I just don’t consume poetry as easily as I do fiction and nonfiction. I like to read poems unrushed so I can take the time to contemplate and annotate. I like to read poems freshly showered. I like to be warm and comfortable when I read poems, with a candle blazing quietly and a little drink near by. This sort of free time has become rare to me as a student, so most of what I read is assigned to me for class. Though I was required to buy and read these, I’ve grown to love and learn from Marwa Helal’s Ante Body and Customs by Solmaz Sharif. My love of fiction and poetry collide with a flower from my family’s pomegranate tree on Tar Baby by Toni Morrison in the form of a signature that does not belong to Toni Morrison. A poet signed Tar Baby for me after I met him with Morrison’s book in my bag instead of his own. I sometimes wonder if authors could recognize their signature among other vague squiggles. If you can guess who signed my book, give yourself a pat on the back.

A copy of a white book written in Arabic. The Arabic says, "Ishwa': a Palestinian Village." There is an illustration of a man wearing a Palestinian kuffiya with a tree, village, and Al Aqsa mosque in the background.

I cannot write about my books without including the nonfiction that helped shape my view on the world, like the classic by Edward Said, Orientalism, or others, including Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks. I would be doing a greater disservice to myself if I didn’t mention the most influential author in my life: my grandfather. In 1948, my grandfather was expelled from his home and land in the Palestinian village of Ishwa’ outside Jerusalem. His attempts to return were cut short after his imprisonment by Zionist militias, but he never stopped trying to return to Ishwa’. His priceless memories of his village and people were published in Ishwa’: a Palestinian Village in 1998. The book is a preservation of Ishwa’s history with testimonies from my grandfather and other Nakba survivors. David Ben-Gurion famously once said about Palestinian refugees, “The old will die and the young will forget.” My grandfather and family stand as just one refutation to this statement. Our old live after death and our young are born with the memories of the Nakba.

Hedaya Hasan is a Palestinian writer and designer based in Chicago.

Sundress Reads: Review of Nomenclatures of Invisibility

Where threads of culture, family, and faith intertwine, lies Nomenclatures of Invisibility (BOA Editions, 2023). Navigating the liminal spaces between past and present, homeland and adopted country, Mahtem Shiferraw skillfully weaves together a tapestry of verse that speaks to the heart of the immigrant experience. Through his evocative imagery and lyrical prose, Shiferraw invites readers into a world where identities are constantly in flux, shaped by the ghosts of ancestors and the weight of inherited trauma.

The core of Nomenclatures of Invisibility is stated openly in the starting poem, “The Eucalyptus Tree I.” Writing, “Everywhere we go, we smell of death / and something sweet” (9), Shiferraw immediately plunges the reader into a lush world juxtaposed by color and grief. This whole collection, too, follows death, yet combines it with motifs of nature. In the title poem, “Nomenclatures of Invisibility,” Shiferraw writes,

“My ancestors are made with water –

blue on the sides, and green down the spine;

when we travel, we lose brothers at sea

and do not stop to grieve” (10).

Here, Shiferraw paints a bright image for the reader, imagining the loss of memories and personhood due to the voyage (as part of the transatlantic slave trade). With the lines,  “When white faces sprout, / we are told to set ourselves ablaze” (10), she addresses the involvement of colonialism within the process of her family history. Shifferraw also writes: “the loss that follows us everywhere: /  behind mountains, past oceans, into / the heads of trees, how to swallow / a tongue that speaks with too many accents?” (10), showing the impact of those structures onto their individual personhood.

This idea of death haunts the reader throughout the collection. In “the Slaughter,” death is not simply mentioned but becomes the refrain. Shiferraw writes: “By this, we know to expect / the slaughter, and though our deaths are / not new, the dread will always break us open” (45), once again showing the amount of brute violence within her family’s past.

Shiferraw boldly confronts her roots and adds depth into her lineage, breaking past generational and other larger, institutional molds. The poem “Wuchalle” is a perfect example of Shiferraw’s poetic challenge. Written after the Treaty of Wuchalle, in which Italy claimed protectorate over Ethiopia, “the Italians, in Ethiopia, / granting anything, which implies: permissions, / relinquished” (22). Later on in the poem, Shiferraw questions the etymological nuances behind ownership of not just land and people, but also of language. Writing through the full history of the word of Ethiopia, but also keystone events in Ethiopia’s history,  Shiferraw culminates the resistance of her work in the poems’ final lines: “all over our bodies, suddenly spewing outwards / the insidious ways of ownership” (28). The idea of possession as colonial is something which Shiferraw hinges on through this whole piece, and with these two lines, she hits her point home. 

Another motif Shiferraw employs is that of the body. In “War,” Shiferraw exemplifies: “all things foreign – note: referring / to me, or, my body, as a thing; an object – are / made of war, or: things infested by war” (#). Similarly, in “Black Thing,” she writes, “we wear these maps on our bodies, / filled with bone etchings” (54). Here, Shiferraw uses the body and its parts as a metaphor for the different ways which history and lineage of colonialism has imprinted upon her. Yet, Shiferraw also radicalizes the body as a form of memoir and beauty. For example, in “Transcendence,” she writes of a woman whose “skin browns, henna drizzling / with the maps of ancient cities / she understands are found in her belly” (52). In “Mother Mango II,” Shiferraw directly compares her mother to a mango tree, writing, “Mother grows tall and orange; / everywhere she goes, a small / sun adorns new horizons” (65). The tone here becomes more hopeful and positive as Shiferraw changes our perspective of the body not just as a basin of hurt but also love and joy. 

Near the end of the collection, Shiferraw too seems to have undergone the same metamorphosis, writing in “Little Fires” that “I take these little fires / with me everywhere I go” (73). She has understood the differences in which her body—along with other female bodies—can be used for good, utilizing that confidence for herself to create change.

Nomenclatures of Invisibility is a collection full of promise, growth, and emotion. By the end, readers will not only understand the deep cultural roots behind Shiferraw’s work but also emerge freshened from their previous connotations on the body and language. As Shiferraw writes herself at the end of “Nomenclatures of Invisibility,” “This kind of language we know; / naming new things into our invisibility / and this, we too, call home” (13).

Nomenclatures of Invisibility is available from BOA Editions.

Headshot of Saturn against a light green background with a row of crystal beads. Saturn is wearing a white lace dress, their curly hair down and they have necklaces on. In the photo, they are smiling.

Saturn Browne (she/they) is a Chinese-Vietnamese immigrant and the Connecticut Youth Poet Laureate, East Coast Asian American Student Union (ECAASU) Artist in Residence, and the author of BLOODPATHS. Her work has been recognized by Gone Lawn, GASHER, Beaver Mag, Pulitzer Center, Foyle Young Poets, and others. She is an incoming undergraduate student at Yale University.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: If No One Speaks by Sam Szanto

This selection, chosen by guest editor Kirsten Kowalewski, is from If No One Speaks by Sam Szanto (Alien Buddha Press 2022).

The Second Therapy Session

‘Why are you in this relationship?’ asks Julianne. For our second session, she is wearing a pink cardigan with her hair in a tight swollen bun, like the peonies about to burst into bloom in the yard outside. Around her neck is a crucifix on a thin chain.

‘Lauren?’ Julianne smiles. ‘Why are you in this relationship with Paul?’

‘Well, we have a cat and a flat.’ I laugh at the rhyme, the only one who does.

‘Is there anything else you’d like to add?’ Julianne asks, as if I am on the witness stand. I suppose I am, but in comfier surroundings and with a smaller judge and jury.

‘Did you ever hear about that tree that grew around a bike?’ I ask. ‘The bike was left beside a tree in 1914. Maybe by a soldier who went off to war. Over time, the tree treated it like a wound, scarring and scabbing its way around it until the bike was seven feet off the ground.’

Paul is staring at me.

‘Are you the bike or the tree in this analogy, Lauren?’ Julianne leans forward.

‘It’s just a metaphor for every long-term relationship. You grow around each other and become something different until you’re mutually interdependent. I’m with Paul because I can’t imagine not being with Paul.’

‘I’m the bike,’ Paul says.

‘Can you tell Paul how you feel about him right now, Lauren?’ Julianne asks. ‘And Paul, I’d like you to listen until she has finished, maintaining eye contact. Lauren, remember we talked last week about not blaming or shaming, and working from the ‘I’ perspective.’

Paul and I had ignored that advice. In the first session, emotions flew and landed like small grenades. Neither of us had let the other talk uninterrupted, and at the end Julianne suggested this might be a central issue in our relationship. I hadn’t needed to pay fifty pounds to hear that.

‘I feel like he’s going through the motions,’ I say. ‘Like he’s only here because I blackmailed him into it. Also, he doesn’t want sex any more—’

‘You feel like he doesn’t want sex any more—’

‘He doesn’t even want a conversation any more—’

‘This is just bullshit, Lauren.’ Paul cups his neck as if it’s stuffed with the feelings I’ve been expelling.

‘Paul, please listen to Lauren. You can have your say when she’s finished.’

‘If she ever is,’ Paul mutters.

‘He goes out with his mates every weekend, never makes a meal, never feeds the cat, doesn’t remember our anniversary. I’m presuming you get the picture, Julianne.’ Anger clings to me.

‘You feel he’s going through the motions.’

‘He is going through the motions.’

‘This is just bullshit, Lauren,’ Paul says, as if this is a TV drama and the rewind button has been pressed.

‘Whatever,’ I say, like a child.

No one says anything. Time curls in on itself.

‘Paul,’ Julianne says, ‘I’d be interested to hear from you. Why are you in this relationship, and how do you feel about Lauren right now?’

‘That’s two questions.’

Julianne does not respond. I stare at the vase of gentians on the table between us and her; the flowers smell of pain-relief medicine.

‘Lauren’s a great storyteller,’ Paul says.

‘I am?’

‘You don’t know that?’

‘You’ve never said that.’

Paul sighs, as if my mendacity is a heavy rucksack strapped to his back. He looks at Julianne.

‘Lauren has the ability to turn any mundane experience into a great story. Like, she’ll be on the bus and a drunk person will sit next to her, and she’ll tell me about it at home and it’ll be the funniest thing ever rather than just an unpleasant experience. Then she’ll go to the supermarket and forget her purse, and when she tells me about it later, I cry laughing.’

‘That last one was actually traumatic,’ I say, but I’m smiling. Then something occurs to me. ‘Wait, is this a nice way of saying that I manipulate facts with language? So everything I’m saying here is a manipulation?’

‘You’re manipulating my words right now,’ Paul says, and his rage scalds me. ‘You could never take a compliment, could you?’

‘How would you know; you so rarely pay me any.’

‘We have to end there for today,’ Julianne says hastily, ‘but I’ll see you next week. Until then, I’ll set you homework. Every day, do something nice for the other. Just one small act: set the table if you normally let the other do it, for instance.’

‘Thank you,’ I say, standing up. Paul walks out of the room, biting his lower lip.

I open the curtains to an icing-sugar world; the cars and trees are Christmas-cake decorations.

‘Snow!’ I shriek. Paul opens his eyes and curses: ‘It’s the middle of the night, Lauren.’

‘It’s seven. Come on, Paul, let’s go outside. You love the snow.’

When Paul looks at me, I see the truth, shining hard and white as ice. We are breaking up. Have already broken up; are just two people living in the same apartment. At least it’ll save on therapy bills.

‘Well, I’m going out,’ I say.

After putting down food for the cat, curled-up tight in sleep, I wrap up in what Paul calls my duvet coat, slide into Ugg boots and gloves and open the front door. Breathtaking cold blows in.

There is no one else in the street.

The snow is moist and packable, achingly cold even through gloves. I make three snowballs: one small, one medium and one large, rolling them one way and then the other as my dad taught me. A carrot for a nose, forks for arms, figs for coat buttons. My dad always added a scarf, the most colourful he could find. I don’t have a colourful scarf.

Suddenly, tears flood my cheeks.

‘Lauren.’

Paul is in the doorway, holding his bright-yellow scarf.

Sam Szanto is a short story writer, poet and PhD researcher who lives in Durham (UK) with her husband and two children. Her short story collection, If No One Speaks, was published in 2022 by Alien Buddha Press; her poetry pamphlet ‘Splashing Pink‘ by Hedgehog Press in 2023 (and was a Poetry Society Winter Pamphlet Choice) and another pamphlet ‘This Was Your Mother‘ by Dreich Press in 2024. She won the Charroux Poetry Prize and the First Writer’s International Prize for Poetry. Her poems and stories have been published widely in international literary journals. She also runs a blog to promote independent authors.


Kirsten Kowalewski is a former school Librarian, occasional beta reader, book reviewer, and editor for Monster Librarian, an online review resource for horror and dark fiction.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: If No One Speaks by Sam Szanto

This selection, chosen by guest editor Kirsten Kowalewski, is from If No One Speaks by Sam Szanto (Alien Buddha Press 2022).


Apple Crumble Baked by a Ghost

(excerpts)

The wind clenches its fingers around the doors and windows and the apple tree shakes. There is a nebulous sense of impending rain. Charlie eats one of her apples, which she has been storing. It is meaty and aromatic, the flesh snowy white. She considers making something with the apples, but she never bakes. That was her mother’s domain. Neil liked cakes, but always shop-bought them. What would she do with whatever she baked, eat it all herself? She could invite someone over to share it, her dad or Vicky, but her dad has high cholesterol and isn’t meant to eat cake and Vicky is always slimming. Still, Charlie flicks through the recipe books that were her mother’s, the pages stuck together and stained, ‘Sylvia Smith’ scrawled on the flyleafs.

Charlie can’t decide what to bake, whether to bake. It feels like an insurmountable problem. She goes to the fridge, takes out a bottle of wine and pours herself a large glass.

Soon, the air is brittle and fragrant with apples and wine and Charlie, who has only eaten toast and soup all day, is feeling hazy.

The doorbell rings, then rings again. Charlie peers out and sees little kids, dressed as ghouls and witches and Harry Potter, holding buckets. She had forgotten about Halloween. She was sure that people weren’t supposed to come trick or treating anymore unless the house had been decorated to show this was welcome. Then she remembered what happened last year: the child next-door put a lit pumpkin in her living room window and, due to it being a terrace, people mistook her house for Charlie and Neil’s; Neil ran to the Co-op and bought bags of chocolates to hand out.

Charlie has nothing to give but apples, and doesn’t want to go to the Co-op. She ignores the doorbell and takes the wine to the living room. By ten o’clock, she has got through a series of Lucifer and one-and-a-half bottles of Sauvignon Blanc.

‘You shouldn’t drink so much on your own, sweetheart.’

Her mum stands in the doorway, wearing the printed dress. Her skin is moon-white.

‘Yes, Mum. I’m going up to sleep it off now.’

‘I never went to bed without doing the washing-up,’ her mum says reprovingly.

‘Ah, it was always Neil’s job,’ Charlie says. ‘Sometimes I forget he’s not here. I’ll do it in the morning, anyway.’

‘Get to bed,’ her mum tells her. ‘I’ll sort it out.’

‘Ghosts can wash-up?’

‘I’m Mum first, ghost second.’

‘What was prison like, Mum?’

‘The worst thing was being away from you and your dad. Now, get your beauty sleep.’

Late the next morning Charlie, head heavy on her neck and mouth furred, draws apart her curtains. It looks as though it is a warm day, the clouds cuddled in the arms of the sky.

She remembers the night before. Surely her mother can’t have done the washing-up. There are ghosts, and there is madness. Her dad would say she needs therapy, after what she has gone through, and she does.

Taking a deep breath, Charlie puts on her dressing gown, wraps it tight around herself, and descends the stairs.

The kitchen smells of sugar and apples. It is spotless, with no sign of the dirty pots that Charlie left beside and in the sink. Everything is in its correct place, including the empty wine bottle in the outside green glass-recycling box.

‘Oh, Mum.’

Tears spring to Charlie’s eyes. She thinks of what her dad – Vicky – anyone – would say: you were drunk; you would have done the washing-up before you went to bed and forgot about it.

Then she notices something else. A serving dish with a clean, white-as-milk tea towel covering it. Charlie takes off the cloth. Beneath lies an apple crumble.

She leans against the counter; she weeps.

Sam Szanto is a short story writer, poet and PhD researcher who lives in Durham (UK) with her husband and two children. Her short story collection, If No One Speaks, was published in 2022 by Alien Buddha Press; her poetry pamphlet ‘Splashing Pink‘ by Hedgehog Press in 2023 (and was a Poetry Society Winter Pamphlet Choice) and another pamphlet ‘This Was Your Mother‘ by Dreich Press in 2024. She won the Charroux Poetry Prize and the First Writer’s International Prize for Poetry. Her poems and stories have been published widely in international literary journals. She also runs a blog to promote independent authors.


Kirsten Kowalewski is a former school Librarian, occasional beta reader, book reviewer, and editor for Monster Librarian, an online review resource for horror and dark fiction.