The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Breakpoint by Betsy Aoki

This selection, chosen by guest editor JJ Rowan, is from Breakpoint by Betsy Aoki, released by Tebot Bach in 2022.

#Function of the self

def update(self):
	# update angle
	self.angle += self.angle_vel

	# update position
	self.pos[0] = (self.pos[0] + self.vel[0]) % WIDTH
	self.pos[1] = (self.pos[1] + self.vel[1]) % HEIGHT

	#update age
	self.age = self.age+1
	if self.age < self.lifespan:
		return False
	else:
			return True

Elizabeth (Betsy) Aoki is a poet, fiction writer and game producer. Her first poetry collection, Breakpoint was a2019 National Poetry Series Finalist and published as the winner of the Patricia Bibby First Book Award. Her poem “Slouching like a velvet rope” won the 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize, selected by Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown. Most recently her work is featured in Cascadia Field Guide, a Pacific Northwest nature anthology matching poets with visual artists. Her prior publications include The Margins (Asian American Writers’ Workshop), Uncanny Magazine’s 50th issue, Calyx, and Hunger Mountain.

JJ Rowan (they/them) is a queer nonbinary writer and dancer. Their poems, not-poems, and interactive performances have appeared in the tiny, Dream Pop Journal, 45th Parallel, and at the SMOL Fair and the Splinter Collective’s Interrupted by Trains, among others. Their most recent chapbook is a simple verb (Bloof Books). They are on the editorial team at just femme & dandy. You can sign up for their newsletter, actual motion, at their website.