The Wardrobe's Best Dressed: That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz

This selection, chosen by guest editor Shira Haus, is from That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz (Gyroscope Press, 2023).

The Freedom from Being Beautiful

                                               after a line in the poem
                                                                   Menopause by C. Prudence Arceneaux

All that work:

The manicured body,
replenished skin,
and the avoidance of the syrupy desires,
the lusting glow of everything bronze.

Hair managed, eyes shadowed,
the arched and high cheekbone turning
into the right angle, away from the sun,
and anything else that might burn through the work.

The nightly rituals, the glossy cover photo
touched up, but never touched, never knowing
the comfort of what can be discovered
in the uncovering of one’s uncharted skin.

Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines for over a decade after the Vietnam War years. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College.
She has published six poetry collections: That Infinite Roar, Talking Me Off The Roof, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Simple Gestures, Women at the Onsen, and Somewhere in the Telling. Her book, Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won the Blue Light Press Chapbook Contest.
She has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, OneArt, Sheila Na Gig, The Bloomsbury Review, The MacGuffin, The Louisville Review, The Charlotte Poetry Review, The Roanoke Review, The Southern Review, The New Virginia Review, The South Florida Review, and many other literary journals and anthologies.
She produced the documentaries, Do Tell, on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and Strangers to Peace, a documentary on the Colombian peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia.
She has been writing poetry since she could hold a pen. She currently resides in Florida, where every day is a political poem waiting to be written. Retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.

Shira Leah Haus (she/her) is a queer, antizionist Jewish writer from Michigan. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, and wildness, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry.