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).

TransError(7)

								Is the 

						monster 

								truly 

										di 

			fferent or is she

	simply 

										be

	tter at exposing 

								her 

								differenc 

								e? 		I’m 		ertain the cyborg
												is a woman lying
												in bed asked to
												explain brushing
												hair don’t wanna 
												explain i| haven’t
												figured this out or
												admit that no one
												has asked before

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.