The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke (Driftwood Press 2026).

WHEN I CAME OUT TO YOU

When I bit Barbie’s head off, when I stole Jim’s racecar
pajamas, wearing them underneath. My baseball cap
seemingly surgically attached from kindergarten
through college I waged war whenever asked about

wearing tops on bathing suits. When I swigged Sprite,
imitating you drinking Heineken, emulating you
wiping the drips with my sleeve instead of napkin.
I wore a sweatshirt over two t-shirts both always stained

(one from mustard the other blood.) Hating you
teasing me, saying I wanted to marry Joe Namath—
yeah, no. I wanted to be Joe Namath and you knew it.
When I said call me “Sport” instead of “sweetheart,”

shoving my hands deep in my pockets, practicing spitting,
knuckle-cracking, peeing while standing. Toothpick in mouth,
sticking out, like a thug or a gangster. All those times begging
through a payphone for authentic cowboy boots, begging

for thick brown leather belts pleading for
LL Bean Black Watch plaid flannel, desperate
for a men’s navy blazer— my holy grail—
the secret inside pockets where I’d conceal

a pocketknife, lighter, playing cards, marbles,
string. I used to write you from my bunk in camp,
with a flashlight write asking for a men’s 10-speed,
GI Joes, sling shots, boxing gloves, Daisy Rifle,

boomerang, chemistry sets, erector sets,
a set of real walkie talkies to communicate
clearly, hoping I could be understood. I’d shave
my face stealing shaving cream you left behind,





slapping on your old aftershave, imagining
your big sandpaper hands bookending my face.
I’d thank grandpa whenever he’d chuckle at me
saying, “You could pass for a starting linebacker!” “You

definitely walk like Bucky Dent” said Uncle Stanley. My favorite
however, remains, “You move like a bull in a china shop”—
which mom said a lot, between her cigarette puffs describing me
to myself, forever making zero sense. After you left her,

leaving me too, alone fishing around in the dark for loose quarters,
dimes, nickels I’d save up, never spending. Your remnants, I saved
in this empty cigar box I hid under my bed. Keeping it wrapped in
tin foil, dropping it on your blanket in the end, coming out to you.

National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book,  I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


Sundress Reads: Review of Her Mouth a Palace of Lamps

Sundress Reads

The reasons I read poetry are so numerous, and each of them so meaningful that explaining them all would probably take a lifetime. For the purposes of this review, I’ll mention one: to have ordinary human experience transmuted into something that feels new, revelatory, and even magical. Which brings me to the poetry collection Her Mouth a Palace of Lamps (Milk & Cake Press, 2025) by Yamini Pathak. This book contains some of the most dazzling poetry I have ever read, bar none.

Each of the book’s sections is named after an element of a raga, which is a melodic framework for improvisation in Indian classical music. More than just a piece of music theory, the word “raga” itself in Sanskrit is related to color, to dyeing, and the soul. That is the essential mission of a raga: to evoke a particular emotional state in the listener, to color the soul and the mind, if you will. That Pathak would choose this as the framework for her book is more than fitting, not only because Pathak’s poetry is itself endlessly vivid and evocative, but because she explores a vast emotional territory.

The first section, after the prelude, is named Thaat. A subheading simply denotes it as “The Parent Scale.” The first poem of the section, “Ghazal for the Children Born Far from Home,” demonstrates with its brilliant couplets that this section is aptly named:

Rama scaled the ocean/Bheeshma died pillowed on a bed of arrows
Their ghosts in your marrow unstirring, this is my sorrow

In the bazaar you petted unblemished baby goats, you didn’t know
they were meant for slaughter, this is my sorrow

Exiled from a language where yesterday also means tomorrow
You wander thirsty with no tongues, this is my sorrow.

Dedicated to her sons, the poem is a perfect example of Yamini’s poetic ability as well as the themes of the first section of the book. She is able to conjure huge depths of emotion, acknowledging the sadness she feels at her sons growing up without their ancestral tongue but also endless possibility as she mentions the time-bending aspect of that tongue and the magical imagery of the religion she was raised with. Where there is beauty, there is violence; where there is sorrow, there is the memory of joy.

It isn’t just the poems themselves that make this book memorable, though. It’s often how they are ordered. The final three poems of the second section demonstrate this to devastating effect. All poems seem, in some way, to be looking back at some place, or some person, that cannot be returned to. They all deal with the death of the speaker’s father. In “On a Far Afternoon,” as the speaker’s father is dying in the hospital, they pass by “a hall / where marriages are sealed by flame. / Every morning a white mare / grazed outside.” It’s a line that Gabriel García Márquez would’ve written. In the next poem, “Everest,” she describes the moment when the painting of the same name by Nichola Roerich brings tears to her eyes when she sees it in a gallery. The only indication that these tears might be for her father comes in a line that is all the more searing for its candor: “Only a week since my father died.”

Then comes “Hunger,” the last poem of the section. The bulk of the poem describes how the narrator prepares a cauliflower for a meal, listening to Yo-Yo Ma talk on a podcast while she does so. The façade, like any façade, has cracks, and the grief seeps through: “I imagined a space like a cavernous chest, / the cello pulsing at its heart…My own chest vibrated, empty.” The experience of beauty is likened to receiving “a glimmer of impermanence.” And as Yo-Yo Ma’s band plays at the end, they “intone a dirge.” Here, it’s Pathak’s restraint that recreates the enormous tension of trying to hold yourself together. It’s heart-stopping. This section is named Alaap. Alaap, Pathak tells us, is a melodic improvisation in a raga that “defines the raga, its mood, emphasi[s], secondary notes.” The mood of this raga, then, seems to be the mood of departure, of memory, and grief.”

The last section is called Pakad, which is a “musical phrase that establishes the identity of a raga, encapsulating its essence.” An overarching theme here is more elusive. These poems are focused more on the day-to-day experiences of the narrator, such as perimenopause or dealing with unpleasant coworkers. (It also contains a poem called “Poem with No Apology,” which is one of the best love poems I’ve ever read. The line “I love you like I love a novel that makes me sad / it has ended” is one I will wish for the rest of my life I had written for my girlfriend.) I think, though, that this smattering of experience and emotion is the point. It comes the closest to the experience of actual selfhood, of real life, and, having read the book, it appears that this is the essence of Pathak’s raga. The reminiscences that have come beforehand have shaped the person the narrator is now. What we, the reader, are supposed to take away from that fact, I’m not sure; Pathak is a better writer than to provide an answer for us. Maybe, going back to that love poem, it is to love the places and people we encounter “like a burning building, like there’s no more time to waste.” Or maybe it comes in one of my favorite poems of the collection, “The Cosmos Asks Three Questions,” in which the universe itself speaks to the narrator:

At the airport, that woman by the sliding doors, homeless and babbling like a river with stones in its underbelly? She could be you, escaped from a parallel universe through a rent in my fabric…The galaxies are pitted with black holes, gravitational lenses that bend and distort light so that everything is chimera, illusion, Maya…If you led a blameless life, you need not fear my teeth.

Her Mouth a Palace of Lamps is available from Milk & Cake Press

Joseph Norris graduated with a BFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College in May of 2025. He has had short stories and poems published in Half and One, Gauge, won the Humans of the World Summer Poetry Prize, and made the Shortlist for the 2025 Letter Review Poetry Prize. His debut poetry chapbook, The Remains, was published by Bottlecap Press in March of 2026. He lives in Berkeley, California with his girlfriend Macie and their cat, Dory, and is learning how to play the guitar and the banjolin.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke (Driftwood Press 2026).

CARE NOTE: Suicidal Ideation

EXIT STRATEGY

The very first time I consider ending
my life                                I am four. Me
and my brother are permitted a walk

after dinner                      (us leaving only
after folding our napkins and politely
requesting,                        may I be

excused?) to explore resort terrain
in places                            like Acapulco—
places that put jealous faces on teachers

when we go                       back wearing tans,
delivering show-and-tell trinkets like leftover
pesos                                  and piñatas. We skip,

hop on one leg run fast along pristine paths
snaking                              around spa buildings,
tennis courts, giant swimming pools. We

impersonate                      a tightrope act, balancing
along floating docks yachts cling to by rope.
I stick                                 with my brother, older

by five years he is constantly checking his glow-
in-the-dark                        Timex, deciding when
to turn back. This one night is different: I’m not

excused                              to accompany my brother
on a walk. I’m excused instead to head to the ladies
room                                   (I only call it that to her—

to my mother or she won’t allow me my exit)
I never use                         that word otherwise
and never ever enter doors saying it. Instead,



I slip                                  into mens rooms or when on
vacations like this I’ll use those bathrooms marked
rest                                     room next to the pool. Coming

back, I hear my brother whistling to himself, so I go
quietly                               find him. BOO! I yell so
he jumps laughs chases me and I run then hide

behind                               a tree. He is better at pretty
much everything, except not at hide-and-seek, or jax,
or red-light-                      green-light 1 – 2 – 3 or

kickball or rope climbing. And if I hold my breath
when I hide,                      he gives up, yelling, Come out!
Come out! Wherever you are! without ever finding

me. This night                   after he yells come out I reappear,
begging for one more time so he covers both eyes and counts.
I take off,                            running on grass instead of cement

so my patent leather shoes go silent. I head to the Pro Shop—
darkened                            and closed at night— the headless
mannequins in tennis outfits attract but also spook me so

I try to look /                      not look and I squint a bit and zoom
upstairs to the second level— open air, a canopy top and heavy
chairs jumbled                    like cutlery thrown down a staircase

by folks dragging them into odd positions to watch tennis
matches                                on the courts below. Ready or not here
I come shouts my brother, peeling hands from his eyes, walking

looking                                 behind trees, trying his hardest but not
even coming close to finding me. From my perch I see him
in a way                                I rarely can— tippy top of his head



where his part divides his hair. So neat looking— impossibly
hard straight-                       line side part like he used a ruler. I see
his Timex glowing (he wears it outside his shirt cinching tight

his sleeve                               like a belt around a slim waist) super
unmanly my father says… Except my brother doesn’t care
when anyone                         says stuff like that, simply preferring

not moving his sleeve out of the way to reveal time.
My eyes                                 drool seeing the tops of his loafers
too— perfect shiny brown penny loafers I want to possess

so badly.                                 Instead of pennies I’d put pesos inside
those slots, but my mother says maybe to me getting a pair after
I outgrow                                shoes I wear and hate. Pretty much wanting

everything my brother has and pretty much getting none of it.
Except if                                 his Timex breaks he’ll get another, and
I’m promised his broken one. Why do you want a broken watch

not able                                  to tell time? Leni asks. It won’t matter
I tell Leni because I can’t tell time, I say. Really, I just want
to feel                                    the tight band squeeze my skin— feel

the burning metal heated by sun like what happens when I let
my teaspoon                          soak in hot tea— I use it under the table
to burn my hand, singeing me a little, leaving a mark behind

on my palm                           like a real tattoo like Popeye has. I don’t
like Popeye, but I like sailor uniforms a lot— I like I’m Popeye
the sailor man                       I’m Popeye the sailor man… that song

I hum to myself whenever I’m eating Alpha Bits or Apple Jacks.
I think it’s crazy                    I’m not allowed anything basically
every other kid gets to do, and yet I can make myself breakfast



from cereals                           no other kid ever gets to eat. Sugar
I appreciate but it can’t stop me thinking about suicide. Not this
very first time                        on this vacation in Acapulco— while I’m

playing hide-and-seek with my brother I hear screaming,
Jimmy!                                  It’s my mother calling him Jimmy!
She just keeps screaming until he pops up like toast popping

out from                                the toaster— then he jumps to attention
like my GI Joe saluting Yes? My mother, still screaming, Have
you seen                                that sister of yours? My brother’s head

darts side to side like a pinball desperate trying to discern
from where                           her voice is screaming. From my perch
I see her smoke first, clouding above tall hedges quickly

moving                                  in our direction. Peering over the railing
to the tennis court below I know if I jump, I won’t
                                                bounce

                            like a
tennis
              ball,

or even                                 like a racquet hurled hard at the rubber
surface by older kids getting mad during lessons. I know
I will die                              quickly— upon impact, leaving my body

lying in a jumble like on CSI before the sheet covers the corpse
I imagine                             my blood spreading outwards, a fat puddle
all around me like red wine infecting a cocktail napkin when

the glass                               gets over-filled. I imagine my mother, still
smoking, looking down at me. Would she touch me? I wonder,
see if I                                  have any life left in me? I decide she wouldn’t—



instead, she’ll have my father lift me up and carry me—
my corpse—                        away to where? Where will my body be
kept until vacation ends and we all go home for my funeral? Why

I don’t                                  jump this night doesn’t matter. What matters
is I think something I can never unthink. That matters a great deal
to me.                                  Even if I didn’t think about dying more

than other kids growing up in unhappy families, I now knew
something—                       I now held the power to control one perfect thing
in my life— even if it ended up becoming the last thing ever in my life.

Now armed,                        I was a fire fighter commanding infinite water
extinguishing violent flames. Later, while catching hell from my mother
I pretend-                            fall asleep amidst screaming and my heart

pounding like it does when I’m in trouble. Except now, cushioning
my heart                             beats as a piano damper pedal muffles sound,
floated this new, light, soft impossible freedom—

freedom                              to get away, for good.
That carried me off to sleep this night, an angel
cocooning                           me safely upwards.

National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book,  I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


Meet Our New Intern: Joan Alft

Disclaimer: if at any point this post starts sounding a little too much like it was written by a pretentious middle-aged man, you have permission to steal everything I own. All 106 records, 70 cassettes, 22 VHS tapes, 109 CDs, and 79 DVDs—I mostly collect from various vintage and secondhand stores and, of course, the few local record stores around Knoxville. Just the other day, my 12 year old sister came up to me and asked if I could bring her somewhere to get a record for her friend’s birthday party. She (the friend) had just gotten a record player, and I’m pretty much the only person my sister knows who collects that sort of thing. Of course I took her to Lost and Found and it was a fun trip, but we had limited info on what kind of music her friend listens to and didn’t end up getting anything. Never fear—I made her friend a little zine on how to take care of her records instead, which was an overall much cheaper option and one that allowed my sister to pick out something else for her friend instead.

Still, it made me think about my own philosophy (if you will) about collecting physical media and enjoying art. I excluded books in the little list above because I genuinely have too many to reasonably count, but I promise they are relevant here as well. But back to my records and tapes: yes, I like them because I can hold them in my hands. Yes, I like them for their tangibility (sleeve out of the jacket, record out of the sleeve, record onto the platter). Yes, I like knowing that I truly own these pieces of art and no corporation can censor them or remove my access to them at will.

A white person with wavy dark brown hair sits on an orange chair and smiles in the direction of the camera. Her eyes are closed and she wears a bejeweled blue cowboy hat. She is wearing a striped orange top and is holding a knife and a loaf of chocolate babka.

More than that, though, I love that I can’t skip a song without going through a lot of trouble. If I want to skip ahead while playing a record, I have to lift the needle, move it, and drop it into the precise groove where the next song starts. If I want to skip ahead on a cassette or VHS, I have to push a button and let the tape wind itself up and hope I stop it at just the right moment (which almost never happens). Everything takes effort and none of the effort will every produce perfection.

On one hand, this system has allowed me to develop the tiniest percent more patience, which is always a helpful thing. On the other hand, not being able to skip around on the “highlights” of an album has encouraged me to look at albums in their entirety with a much greater level of respect. Of course, I still listen to music digitally when I want to make a playlist or listen to a specific song—not every album is perfect or anywhere near it, and I don’t have the space or money to own half as many albums as I’d actually listen to. But since I started collecting media that forces me to slow down, I have slowed down.

If an artist puts ten songs on an album in a specific order, that order is intentional. The important part is that intentionality does not equal perfection. In my own writing habits, I try to apply this value to all drafts, but especially earlier ones. And with generative AI as a threat in lots of circles, prioritizing being intentional over being perfect feels like a step in the right direction both creatively and generally. While I’m hoping my sister’s friend gets as much fun out of her new hobby as she possibly can, I’m also hoping that through it, she might value art more intentionally.

A white person with choppy bangs, black hair, and a black top sits at a table and smiles at the camera. She is wearing several necklaces and large dark red glasses. 

Joan Alft (she/any) is an undergraduate student at the University of Tennessee studying publishing and creative writing. Her short story “Pilgrim” is forthcoming in the Phoenix Literary Arts Magazine where she works as an Assistant Prose/Fiction Editor. Gothic themes and relationships, the dichotomy between the familiar and unfamiliar, and confusingly intense devotion in places where it shouldn’t be are a few things she enjoys seeing in others’ art and tries integrating in her own projects. In her free time, Joan collects physical media (records, cassettes, DVDs, CDs, and VHS tapes, oh my!), hangs out at local coffeeshops, and sews on occasion.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Mid-Year Best Best Dressed

This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 5 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed so far this year.

Merrick’s final selection for the mid-year best of 2026 is from Affidavit by Starr Davis (Hanging Loose Press 2026).

IN OHIO

My mother is asleep by six o’clock every evening
          although on her taxes she still checks single never married.
Most of her relationships have been ten years or more
          She falls asleep with dark cognac warm on her lips.
No man to worry about; no children to listen out for
          She has always worked on assembly.
The same thing every day is a safe life
          Love never guarantees such a luxury.
She opts out; she works to stay safe out the way
          Her work clothes are draped across a chair.
A fresh coffee filter sits readily near the pot
          She takes her coffee black.
Calls me fancy for adding almond milk and sugar to mine—
          All her daughters are grown with homes of their own, she says.
As a proud accomplishment
          None of us were teenage mothers.
We went to school
          Sometimes to church.
Motherhood is a war she won
          We knew how to lock the doors and windows.
We knew how to tell men at the gas station to fuck off
           We knew how to earn a living by eighteen.
We knew why we had to leave by eighteen—
           At some point, they called us lucky.
And maybe I felt lucky for a while
           I made it without a father, I say this to strangers.
As a proud accomplishment
          When my daughter is born, and I am grown enough
To be a mother
           I fall asleep when the city is useless.
When all the bars and clubs close down nearing the witching hours—
           Times I used to sneak back into the house.
Back when I wasn’t grown, and my mother had children
          Wild, loose girls to listen out for.

Daughters she would curse for coming in late
          Daughters she raised to know better.
Daughters she raised to be grown enough



          To tell men at the gas station to fuck off.
Daughters she raised like sons—
          And when I close my eyes, I see the man.
Dark and toxic like the one my mother drinks alone.
          A man who bought me a drink one night.
In exchange for a baby by morning
          I can see him standing in a courtroom of shadows.
Telling a judge I am no mother to his child
          I am a wild, loose girl from Ohio on the run.
With a baby that is his
          I am unwed, alone.
My last year’s taxes I check, single never married
          Emotionally unstable—or does he call me dangerous?
Is there a difference?
          I leave Texas fleetingly like I had been gone
On a bad date     all night

          My mother is asleep when my plane lands.
At the only airport in town—my baby
          is tied to my chest like a pacemaker.
The day before I laid my clothes out
          like the first day of school.
I sit an empty coffee mug by the machine.
          My important documents: the ones that say I am human woman.
Naming the generation that has come from my body and is legally mine
          I worry about the man sleeping next to me.
The child who binds us for the next 18 years to life
          is asleep across the room in her bassinet.
She is soon to become fatherless in hours
          soon to be the daughter my mother taught me to be.
The one I vow to teach to know better
          To tell men at the gas station to fuck off.
Maybe not verbally—but just with her eyes
          That morning, I drink my coffee black.
I am no longer fancy with a baby
           I put on leggings and a t-shirt.
A jacket because I am always in winter
          Someone tells me the best way to leave an abuser—
Is like a burglar, jumping inside a getaway cloud
          The sun is out the day I take off.
Nearing the hour



          My mother probably takes her lunch break.
I run into the hot sun bright like death
          I wake up on the other side of myself.
The girl from Ohio I left behind some time ago
          I call my mother at the airport.
Knowing better than to knock at her door at this hour when
          Only women who aren’t real women are outside.
She does not answer the phone when I call—
          No man to worry about; no child to listen out for.

Starr Davis (she/her) is a poet and essayist whose work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Academy of American Poet’s Poem-a-Day, and The Rumpus. She was the 2024 Writing Freedom Fellow with Haymarket Books and the Mellon Foundation. 

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. A 2026 Best of the Net and 2025 AWP Intro Journal Awards winner, Merrick’s poetry appears in citizen trans* {project}, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.

September Poetry Xfit

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Alexa White. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, September 27th, from 2 to 4 pm EST via Zoom. Join us at the link tiny.utk.edu/poetryxfit.

Poetry Xfit isn’t about throwing tires or heavy ropes, but the idea of confusing our muscles is the same. You will receive ideas, guidelines, and more as part of this generative workshop series in order to complete three poems in two hours. A new set of prompts will be provided after the writers have written collaboratively for thirty minutes. The goal is to create material that can be later modified and transformed into artwork rather than producing flawless final versions. The event is open to prose authors as well!

Alexa White is a mixed-race, neurodivergent writer and graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned her BA in Creative Writing and Studio Art. Alexa lives in Knoxville, her semi-hometown, and is the Creative Director and Assistant Editor at Sundress. She takes delight in backroads, quarries, and the last few seconds of sunset and redefines her bedtime nightly.

For Colored Girls: A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “For Colored Girls: A Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf” a workshop led by Monica Prince, on Wednesday, September 9th from 6:00-7:30 PM EST. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can register for the event here.

Join us for an online celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Broadway debut of Ntozake Shange’s seminal work, For Colored Girls Who’ve Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuff. This showcase of poets who’ve performed Shange’s work and/or been inspired by it, includes choreopoet, director, and educator Monica Prince who will lead the evening. She will be joined by an incredible line-up of poets including Shakeema Smalls, M. Mick Powell, Sullivan Summer, Jasmine Blooms and Rosa Castellano.

The evening will start and end with Shange’s words with the aim of inspiring a new generation to read her work and to give time and space to the sharing of what that work has meant to those present. It will be heart opening.

If you would like to support Sundress, you may make a charitable donation here in lieu of a ticket purchase. Your contribution supports our commitment to offering experiences like this to our community at no cost, improving arts accessibility for all.

This event is made possible in part by a grant from the Tennessee Arts Commission.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Mid-Year Best Best Dressed

This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 5 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed so far this year.

Merrick’s fourth selection for the mid-year best of 2026 is from local remedies by Chiagoziem Jideofor (Host Publications 2026).

in today’s terms

the war ended
when we had just folded

the impact was leaden
we picked up panic

it then grew to become war
hence the need to tell it in parts

in today’s terms
are dazed and struggling

while the generals patrol the streets
coordinate door-to-door

at home, we stay worrying
why we aren’t yet dazzling,

when a greater force met our bodies
like businesses stockpiling only rebel notes

with the flies circling and buzzing
picked up bulk in adjourning rooms

that happened differently,
and attach local colors

war means people are in no hurry
with replacements

with an air
in the name of civil obedience

the boys asking
so unlike the sun in our flag

Chiagoziem Jideofor (she/her) is Queer and Igbo. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Michigan Quarterly Review, South Carolina Review, berlin lit, The Lincoln Review, Passages North, Commonwealth’s adda, the minnesota review, Shō Poetry Journal, MAYDAY, and elsewhere. She earned an MFA from the University of Alabama and is currently a PhD student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. A 2026 Best of the Net and 2025 AWP Intro Journal Awards winner, Merrick’s poetry appears in citizen trans* {project}, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Mid-Year Best Best Dressed

This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 5 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed so far this year.

Merrick’s next selection for the mid-year best of 2026 is from The Fault by Marcela Sulak (Black Lawrence Press 2024).

WEDDING GIFT

The print that began the ending of my marriage was so
gorgeous, I’d forgotten how gorgeous it was in real life, laid
out on the examination table, as the framer and I took measure
of what lay before us—the paper itself and the textures, alive
and breathing. The whale inside it shook a bit and swished,
but it might have been the waves brushing against a stone, or
it might not have been water at all, just strange birds in the
Negev against a blue and white sky about to blink off without
the fanfare of sunset. Tears burst when my fingertips brushed
it. The framer, also, cleared his throat upon sliding it from
its canister and unfolding it across the table. He touched the
ragged edges and caressed the signature—print 1 of 12, he
whispered. Every time he touched it he asked permission, as
if we were lovers—may I remove it from its box? May I spread
it out? The framer is going to Monte Negro for a week, so
he’ll have it ready on Friday, Sept. 20. Once home, I undress
and wait in bed, the sheets and covers indeterminate colors of
green, for the dream to return to the point it left off, the last
time I touched it. Then I was swimming all night through
the air/sand/water that was the page of the print, and while
nothing in particular happened, it was the nothing particular
that happens when you walk on a strange and beautiful
landscape for the first time. Or the nothing particular that
ends a marriage. Then every leaf and every water drop and
every strange flower is a happening.

Marcela Sulak (she/her) has authored five poetry collections, most recently, The Fault, and the National Jewish Book Awards Finalist, City of Skypapers (Black Lawrence Press, 2021). Her six translations of poetry collections from Czech, French, and Hebrew, have been recognized by PEN and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is managing editor of The Ilanot Review, and she directs the Shaindy Rudoff Graduate Program in Creative Writing. 

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. A 2026 Best of the Net and 2025 AWP Intro Journal Awards winner, Merrick’s poetry appears in citizen trans* {project}, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Mid-Year Best Best Dressed

This week, Managing Editor Merrick Sloane shares a new selection from each of their 5 favorite books featured on The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed so far this year.

Merrick’s second selection for the mid-year best of 2026 is from Wolves in Shells by Kimberly Ann Priest (The University of Nebraska Press 2025).

Protections

Against the whir of my treadmill
     a shot rings out

and a wolf is gunned down—O-Six,
     they named her,

numinous alpha female
     of Yellowstone National Park

because she survived
     solo.

Even the commentator says
     this was unusual

and dangerous; yet she was beloved
     for acuity

and beauty, face like an owl mask against
     snow white.

I listen as the hunter celebrates
     his kill, the documentary

rolling. My treadmill
     rolling.

They had lifted the ban on hunting
     wolves that year—

endangered status just long enough
     for a female

to become her own pack, survive, surpass
     the males of her kind.

Kimberly Ann Priest (she/her) is a writer and visual artist whose book Wolves in Shells won the 2024 Backwaters Prize in Poetry from the University of Nebraska Press. She is the author of four full-length books of poetry and an assistant professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and Cultures at Michigan State University. Her poetry has appeared in Copper Nickel, Poetry Wales, Prairie Schooner, and Birmingham Poetry Review.

Merrick Sloane (they/them) is a neuro-Queer 90’s kid and nonbinary poet, editor, and researcher from Oklahoma. They hold an MFA in creative writing from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and are Associate Poetry Editor of Doubleback Review. A 2026 Best of the Net and 2025 AWP Intro Journal Awards winner, Merrick’s poetry appears in citizen trans* {project}, Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Fruitslice, Puerto del Sol, and elsewhere. When they are not writing or editing, Merrick loves to serve as a pillow for their cat, Kitten, while getting lost in new worlds written by other dreamers. Merrick is deeply committed to helping create a world that liberates us all.