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The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Usual Arteries by Erin Dorney

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This feature, chosen by Guest Editor Catherine Garbinsky, is from The Usual Arteries by Erin Dorney (Illuminated Press 2024).

The Usual Arteries, Version 4

the washings out so warm
and I, looking ever to her, suspended
spun so very well

people were shocked into the marble of same,
to the meal of display

long like our sweet coming

                          a train and the whistle

and meadows enough to put tomorrow
between arms already shining



Did I stay always eyes on her eyes?
                    The smile back unfastened?

red welts bite my heart
    like years we weren’t allowed to keep









____________________
Author’s Note:

The Usual Arteries is a small, experimental folding object which contains poetry interacting with collaged images. This found poem was built by Erin Dorney with words touching the right hand margins on the right side pages of a withdrawn library copy of Flowers in the Attic by Virginia Andrews, copyright 1979.

Published by Laura Rowley of Illuminated Press with design and production assistance from interns Jay Barrett and Scout Frost. Inkjet printed pages with letterpress & screen printed slipcase on paper from French Paper Company.

Erin Dorney (she/her) is a poet and artist based in Western New York. She is the author of Yes I Am Human I Know You Were Wondering (Autofocus Books), The Usual Arteries (Illuminated Press), I Am Not Famous Anymore: Poems After Shia LaBeouf (Mason Jar Press), and many zines and artist’s books. Erin’s writing has been published in DIAGRAM, Tolka, HAD, and other literary journals. Her literary artwork and installations have been featured at the Center for Maine Contemporary Art, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and Susquehanna Art Museum. She is the co-founder of Fear No Lit.

Catherine Garbinsky (she/they) is a writer living in Knoxville, Tennessee. They received their MFA in Poetry from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, where they are now a PhD candidate. Catherine’s poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She has written two chapbooks: All Spells Are Strong Here (Ghost City Press, 2018) and Even Curses End (Animal Heart Press, 2019), and her work has been featured in Yes Poetry, Coffin Bell Journal, Cream City Review, and elsewhere. 


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