WEEKLY WRITING ROUND-UP: 1/26/18

As classes resume this week and I begin a semester of teaching feminist theory, I’ve been thinking about feminist teachers outside of the classroom. One educator who comes to mind is Ceyenne Doroshow, founder of GLITS, author of Cooking in Heels, and community leader, elder, and advocate for transwomen and sex workers. On the night of December 18, Doroshow was attacked by a long-time abuser and subsequently arrested for self-defense. If you are based in or near NYC, please consider coming out for support on February 15 for her court proceedings.

This week I have also been sitting with and recommend checking out the following pieces:

Poetry

Two poems by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal in pinwheel: “What you will say in my memory: that my serenity. That my / softness. That my skirt is the sky pattern. That the cedars kneel for / my passage.”

Poetry by Scherezade Siobhan in Rigorous: “The sky from here is just distance deepening its own / cinereal abscess. All hiss & pang, a tongue slid in between / speech & its blind falcon.”

Two poems by J.J. Hernandez in Queen Mob’s Teahouse: “the road straightens and I get / the urge to hug my father while he / drives, but I don’t. We’re still climbing.”

The Glimmering Creature by Rachel Mennies in Waxwing: “At twenty, each night I slept in a different bed. / Understand: my throat opened around the night / and the men called my hunger reflexive.”

Prose

Nomiccāmā Nomiccānacayo and the Necessity of Art in Difficult Times by ire’ne lara silva: “Don’t drink the poison, my people. Don’t breathe it. Don’t let in to your bodies, your minds, or your spirits. This is a long work we have coming. And we must be strong and outlast them all. Breathe the clean air and look up to the sky and hold each other up.”

Stephanie Kaylor in based in upstate New York and is currently a MA student in Philosophy, Art, and Critical Thought at European Graduate School. She holds a MA in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from the University at Albany and is Managing Editor for Five:2:One Magazine and Reviews Editor for Glass: A Journal of Poetry.