The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: Beautiful Machine Woman Language by Catherine Chen

This selection, chosen by guest editor H.V. Cramond, is from Beautiful Machine Woman Language by Catherine Chen (Noemi Press 2023).

Portrait of a Woman at Ease

intimacy with empire / began / an indulgence / your lipped hip / kissing / every part / you I simmer in / swaddled & pure / joy you cried / what little / we carried / fountains of knowing disgrace / its color story / like earl grey / milk / we / shucked open / the / fertile silence / yes     signs to no / early hour pauses / the exaggerated indulgence / —— says / my grandfather / is mythic / the practice / of carrying / elders into the mouth / of a mountain / to starve / winter then leaves / uncovering / scorching land / black / ice mold / fungal cage / burnt ozone / holes discontinued / letters we wrote / print let the ashes / cluttering corners / wait wait don’t / tell me / I lift secrets / a wrist / staggered between promise / and debt / love is / the process I / weave what / remains of / burning alive every cop in our world / spiraling / clothed & / nude / we dug out the / children’s park / beneath snow

Catherine Chen is a multidisciplinary poet and performer. They have received fellowships from the Watermill Center, Theater Mitu, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (Arts Center Residency 2021), Lambda Literary, Poets House, and Franconia Sculpture Park. Their poems appear in The Rumpus, Hyperallergic, Apogee, Nat. Brut, among others. Chen is the author of the chapbook Manifesto, or: Hysteria (Big Lucks, 2019). They live in Brooklyn.

H.V. Cramond holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was the founding Poetry Editor of Requited Journal for 10 years. In 2018, she helped pass the Survivor’s Bill of Rights in Illinois as an organizer for Rise. Read more of her writing on her website.