The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: A Registry of Survival by Ann Tweedy

Happy New Year! This selection, chosen by guest editor Valyntina Grenier, is from A Registry of Survival by Ann Tweedy, released by Last Word Press in 2020.

Table. Illnesses and Maladies My Mother Thought I Had as a Child

Illnesses and Maladies
Difficulties tracking with the eyes
Allergies
Failure to pay attention when spoken to
???
Failure to develop normal motor skills (e.g., walking)
Brain damage from being birthed with forceps

Treatments/Diagnostic Tools
Tested by a doctor who drew circles with his finger
Extensive testing by a doctor a couple hundred miles away in Connecticut who utilized the then-unique method of placing concentrations of each allergen under the tongue to gauge reactions and who required patients to adhere to a diet of only one non-reactive food per meal
Children’s group therapy
EEG scan
Discussed with above-referenced allergist, who videotaped me crawling at about 10 years old for a conference he was attending; classes with my gym teacher were later set up but abandoned by said teacher after the first session
N/A but referred to in talking with medical providers. I remember the sad, sympathetic face of one red-haired female doctor in particular, whom I thereafter referred to as “carrot-top”

Ann Tweedy‘s first full-length book, The Body’s Alphabet, was published by Headmistress Press in 2016. It earned a Bisexual Book Award in Poetry and was also a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and for a Golden Crown Literary Society Award. Ann also has published three chapbooks, Beleaguered Oases (2nd ed. Seven Kitchens 2020), White Out (Green Fuse Poetic Arts 2013), and A Registry of Survival (Last Word 2020). Her poems have appeared in Rattle, Literary Mama, Clackamas Literary Review, Naugatuck River Review, and many other places, and she has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes and three Best of the Net Awards. A law professor by day, Ann has devoted her career to serving Native Tribes. She currently teaches at University of South Dakota Knudson School of Law.

Valyntina Grenier is a multi-genre eco artist living with her wife in Tucson, AZ. She works with paint, ink, Neon, encaustic medium, recycled or repurposed materials and words. She is the author of Honeymoon Shoes and the chapbooks, Fever Dream/ Take Heart and In Our Now. You’ll find her work in, Beyond Queer Words, Genre: Urban Arts, Impermanent Earth, Lana Turner, The Journal, Querencia, and The Wardrobe. Find her at valyntinagrenier.com or Insta @valyntinagrenier.