This feature, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is a selection from the anthology Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora edited by Holly Mason Badra (The University of Arkansas Press 2025).
Object Exercise
—Tracy Fuad
First you must gather the objects.
Open the polish and polish each object
until every object is coated in polish,
a thin film that takes on the shape
of the object. Then dissect every
object with a circumstantial blade.
When the object is fully dissected,
remake it, but more in your image.
Then use concise scissors to prune
the object, removing what wilts
or yellows. Turn up the object
sound. Then, dissect again. Hold
each piece to check for resistance:
if it withers, it’s an object.
If it shudders, it’s a subject.
Holly Mason Badra (she/her) is the curator-editor of Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora. She received her MFA in poetry from George Mason University, where she is currently the associate director of the Women and Gender Studies program. Her poetry, essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Meridian Magazine, The Arkansas International, The Adroit Journal, The Northern Virginia Review, Foothill Poetry Journal, The Rumpus, CALYX, So to Speak, Circumference Magazine, Asymptote Journal, and elsewhere. She has been a panelist for OutWrite, RAWIFest, and Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here as a Kurdish American poet. Mason Badra reads for Poetry Daily.
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
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