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Sundress Reads: Review of Drive

Based on its title, I had assumed Elaine Sexton’s collection, Drive (Grid Books, 2022), would take me on a journey, but I hadn’t quite expected the way its individual poems would move me through time and space—tangible and intangible, emotional and physical landscapes. Take, for example, the opening poem, which appears with no title:

The most beautiful thing about my car is the 

beach, and the most beautiful thing about the 

beach is watercolor, and the most beautiful 

thing about water is the word, and the most 

beautiful thing about the word is pigment, 

and the most beautiful thing about pigment 

is the soil, and the most beautiful thing about 

soil is the earth, and the most beautiful thing 

about the earth is the sea, and the most beau-

tiful thing about the sea is the drive. (Sexton 11)

This poem starts with the car and the beach and ends with the sea and the drive. The cyclical movement calls to mind the feeling of going out for a trip, taking in the scenery before returning home to where you started. “A Thing or Two,” starts with a leaf and ends with the tree. “Predator / Bait,” starts with a splash and ends with a splash. These poems travel but don’t forget where they came from. The speaker travels as well, from Boston to Rome, from the sea to the sky, from the past to the future. 

Sexton’s poems feel like driving with the windows down on a spring day. The language, crisp and gentle, takes its time. Coupled with the poems’ short lines, some just a word or two, these poems slowed me down. They are not destination focused; they invited me to enjoy the ride. 

As a person who travels full time and spends many days behind the wheel, I felt a camaraderie with the speaker of these poems. Reading them felt like trading stories with a new friend at a rest stop. I too have traveled through the “dead zones / in America / where no one lives / and satellites turn a deaf ear … in one of those red states / shaped like a box” (Sexton 69). I know the ups and downs of a road trip, “the soaring, the breakdown, jumpstarts, the brand new, and old reliable” (Sexton 20). These images invite in all those who are drawn to the road, those who might be caught “Downshifting for the view” (Sexton 23), those who roll down their windows, as Sexton does, to let “The dead / ends of my hair / dragged through the air, / pull their roots / alive” (26). And when Sexton writes, “she is free not to be / where she’s expected to go” (17), my heart flips with recognition. 

Despite the romantic descriptions of a good drive, Drive is not all light and breezy. Early on, Sexton introduces the prominent theme of death. The second poem, “This,” ends with: “Everything is about / gravity, the grave / pulling / for us. Each day / it starts with a bark / calling our name” (Sexton 15). While awareness of a looming mortality lingers throughout the early section, I explicitly felt the impact of an early loss in the poem “Ignition.” Sexton writes, 

I remember my hand

on the car’s smooth blue

lining, the Rambler’s

door as it opened

to the damp grass

of the lawn

to the new house.

I was three

close to four

years old, my father,

newly dead

and my mother

just learning

to drive.” ( 27) 

Here, driving is not about freedom or escape. Driving is about survival. Similarly, the poem, “Drive” explains, “We are old, / old enough, / to equate mobility / with independence” (Sexton 19). I began to understand more intimately the deeper role driving has played in the speaker’s life.

Just as a car eventually begins to break down with use, so do our human bodies. In “Self-Portrait: Between the Car and the Sea,” Sexton writes, “the engine strains in first gear the way on foot my body climbing the last few steps does … How long will these parts last?” (23). The speaker grapples with her own mortality, her own body slowing down with age. This grappling, though, is not morose or despondent. The speaker matter-of-factly tracks these changes. In the poem, “Run,” the speaker begins to pick up the pace on a walk “until a clicking / reminds me that fuel / which is matter / which is mind / which is idea / is not endless / and only as fertile / as the working / brain / allows— / the brain we take / for granted / which could fail / at any time” (21). Though many of these poems address mortality, they seem to argue for presence and appreciation for what is. There is a sense that we are meant to grasp the moment we are in, rather than worry about the future.

I mention above that these poems feel like a spring day, and they do in that they are refreshing in their honesty. They gave me room to breathe. They are not, however, necessarily all happy or full of new hope. One of my favorite poems in the collection, “Self as Hypotaxis,” points to this nuance: “I am happier than I was / when spring equaled death, / so many wakes, so many silences, / equal and un-equal. Spring / sometimes operates / in opposition / to her contract with the earth, and / is not always the birth / of something good” (Sexton 80). These poems are full of life, but they are also full of death. They do not shy away from the truth of our human experience.


Drive is available from Grid Books

Jen Gayda Gupta is a poet, educator, and wanderer. She earned her BA in English at the University of Connecticut and her MA in Teaching English from New York University. Jen lives, writes, and travels across the U.S. in a tiny camper with her husband and their dog. Her work has been published in Up the Staircase, Rattle, Jellyfish Review, Sky Island Journal, The Shore, and others. You can find her @jengaydagupta and jengaydagupta.com.

Sundress Reads: Review of Whale Aria

A masterclass of poetic grace, scientific specificity, and deep cultural respect, Rajiv Mohabir’s Whale Aria (Four Way Books, 2023) weaves together songs of migration, cries against destruction, and the very essence of what it means to be alive.

Mohabir does not shy away from naming oppression, and this directness forces readers to confront the environments through which his speakers and subjects must navigate. In the sequence, “Sound Navigation and Ranging,” he states matter-of-factly, “Come, aggression is healthy, is American” (Mohabir 81). This sentence makes waves juxtaposed with the gorgeous aquatic and mammalian imagery that swims throughout Whale Aria’s pages.

“Invocation,” another sequence earlier in the collection, displays the soul and bioacoustics of whalesong. Mohabir visually evokes the various sounds, rhymes, and patterns of such majestic creatures. Some poems in the sequence boomerang down the page, while others are printed upside down, requiring readers to flip their books or turn their heads to follow along. On page 37, he maps out whale calls with a rising “O,” mapped onto English verse:

With musicality, generosity, and precision, Mohabir thoughtfully considers every moment in which he represents the stories and voices of these ancient animals.

Mohabir also asks questions throughout the collection, indicating both humility and self-assurance. His speakers know themselves; they know right from wrong, and they want to see where readers stand. For example: “have we forgotten how to speak to each other? You don’t understand my words until they’re blaring. Here is my universe” (Mohabir 77). The urgency in this speaker’s voice is tightly interwoven with a demand to be witnessed. A few pages later, Mohabir writes:

“Or do you feel the tidal pull of the ocean at your fins
as you graze your body in the surf’s wake…
How many brown people dry
in the sun? Have you ever lost your own balance? We are safe. We are
safe. The military secures us. Can you move? Who is crossing the kalapani
for you?” (82)

Especially stylized in italics, the repetition of “we are safe,” reads as mantra and prayer. Situated in the words surrounding it, however, the simple statement blends into a question. Are we safe? Who is actually safe, and by what means? At what cost?

In the collection’s final section, a stand-alone poem titled “Why Whales Are Back in New York City,” Mohabir gives both instruction and permission to those who have been pushed to the margins. The poem also acts as ode for New York (a place Mohabir has called/calls home) and for the book’s central figures, humpbacks, one of which graces Whale Aria’s cover. He writes:

“But now grace. bodies of song
return to us. Go to the seaside—
Hold your breath. Submerge.

…

They won’t keep us out
though they send us back.
Our songs will pierce the dark
fathoms. Behold the miracle:
what was once lost
now leaps before you.” (Mohabir 97-98)

Not only does the final image of a whale breaching provide energy and life, but Mohabir expertly uses the first person plural to elicit unity. He acknowledges what a blessing it is to survive, and better yet, to thrive, encouraging readers to take witness to such splendor.

Part translation, part ballad, part historical record of witness, Whale Aria exceeds all expectations of the poetry genre. I especially appreciate that he offers a poem, “In Praise of Hawai’i,” specifically towards the people and land where much of his work was written, and to whom he shares strong personal ties. I feel so fortunate to be in a world where Mohabir’s words, like “the song-shine of stars” (54), guide readers towards revolution, liberation, empathy, and peace.

Whale Aria is available from Four Way Books

Livia Meneghin (she/her) is the author of Honey in My Hair and the Sundress Publications Reads Editor. She won Breakwater Review‘s 2022 Peseroff Prize and earned a 2022-2023 Poetry Fellowship from The Writers’ Room of Boston. Her writing has found homes in Gasher, Solstice Lit, Thrush, Whale Road Review, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA from Emerson College, where she now teaches writing and literature. She is a cancer survivor.

Sundress Publications Announces the Acquisition of Bess Cooley’s Florence

Sundress Publications is pleased to announce the acquisition of Bess Cooley’s debut full-length collection, Florence. Cooley’s collection is slated for publication in late 2024.

Bess Cooley‘s poems have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Western Humanities Review, The Journal, Verse Daily, and other publications. She is also a recipient of the Mississippi Review Poetry Prize. Cooley earned a BA from Knox College and MFA from Purdue University, and currently is a senior lecturer at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She is co-founding editor of Peatsmoke: A Literary Journal.

Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents October Reading Series

The Sundress Academy for the Arts is pleased to announce the guests for the October installment of our reading series, poets Alexa White and Maggie Rue Hess. Join us on Thursday, October 19th  at Pretentious Beer Co. from 7:00-9:00 PM for a reading followed by an open mic hosted by Shlagha Borah. Sign-up for the open mic begins at 7PM sharp and is limited to 10-12 readers.

Photo of Alexa White

Alexa White is a mixed-race, neurodivergent writer and graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned her BA in creative writing and studio art. While attending, she won the 2022 Bain-Swiggett prize for traditional poetry forms and her poetry and art has appeared in Phoenix, the school’s literary and arts magazine. Alexa lives in Knoxville, her semi-hometown, and is the Grants Manager at Sundress Academy for the Arts. She takes delight in backroads, quarries, and the last few seconds of sunset and redefines her bedtime nightly.

person in green jacket and yellow hat standing in front of Christmas lights

Maggie Rue Hess (she/her) is a PhD student living in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her partner and their two crusty white dogs. Her work has previously appeared in Rattle, Minnesota Review, Connecticut River Review, and other publications; her debut chapbook, The Bones That Map Us, is forthcoming from Belle Point Press in February 2024. She likes to practice latte art, share baked goods, do her best at trivia, and be over-involved at school.

This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry and the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Our community partner for October is Knox Pride. Knox Pride is formally referred to as the East Tennessee Equality Council (Inc.), founded in 2006. They’ve grown to not only hold recurring annual events, but they are fulfilling their mission as educators, communicators, and representatives of their community through their community and outreach center, and the events that they facilitate.

Their developing community and outreach center will be another place for people to find a home base in the Knoxville LGBTQ+ community. They intend to have resources, referrals, and services for other parts of their community. Plus, they’ll host events, and meetings, and allow other groups to come to use their space as a gathering center for their cause. Long-term, they envision a space where people can learn more about their pride community, come get tailored for their next interview, or utilize their food pantry if you’re someone who is in need. All of that, and more to come.

Knox Pride Fest, what they’re traditionally known for, is an open celebration of music, entertainment and speakers focused on promoting equality and inclusion for all. Throughout the weekend, vendors will have the opportunity to display information about their organization and/or business, sell or hand out items of interest and interact with our community to promote inclusion and equality for the LGBTQ+ and ally citizens of Knoxville and surrounding areas. They also host other events like a silent ArtOut auction, a Next-2-Nothing fashion show, a pride picnic, and more events throughout the year — with more added annually.

To learn more, go to knoxpride.com and read about all the wonderful work they are doing. In addition to raising money for Knox Pride this month, we will also be running a food drive at our Reading Series event on October 19th to help stock the food pantries Knox Pride runs. Please join us on the 19th with any goods you can share.

Sundress Academy for the Arts Presents October Poetry Xfit

Knoxville, TN — The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Alexa White. This generative workshop event will take place on Saturday, October 22nd from 2 to 4 pm EST via Zoom. Join us at the link tiny.utk.edu/sundress with the password “safta”.

Poetry Xfit isn’t about throwing tires or heavy ropes, but the idea of confusing our muscles is the same. You will receive ideas, guidelines, and more as part of this generative workshop series in order to complete three poems in two hours. A new set of prompts will be provided after the writers have written collaboratively for thirty minutes. The goal is to create material that can be later modified and transformed into artwork rather than producing flawless final versions. The event is open to prose authors as well!

Photo of Alexa White

Alexa White is a mixed-race, neurodivergent writer and graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where she earned her BA in creative writing and studio art. While attending, she won the 2022 Bain-Swiggett prize for traditional poetry forms and her poetry and art has appeared in Phoenix, the school’s literary and arts magazine. Alexa lives in Knoxville, her semi-hometown, and is the Grants Manager at Sundress Academy for the Arts. She takes delight in backroads, quarries, and the last few seconds of sunset and redefines her bedtime nightly.

This event is brought to you in part by grants provided by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry and the Tennessee Arts Commission.

While this is a free event, donations can be made to the Sundress Academy for the Arts here: https://sundress-publications.square.site/product/donate-to-sundress/107?cs=true

Our community partner for October is Knox Pride. Knox Pride is formally referred to as the East Tennessee Equality Council (Inc.), founded in 2006. They’ve grown to not only hold recurring annual events, but they are fulfilling their mission as educators, communicators, and representatives of their community through their community and outreach center, and the events that they facilitate.

Their developing community and outreach center will be another place for people to find a home base in the Knoxville LGBTQ+ community. They intend to have resources, referrals, and services for other parts of their community. Plus, they’ll host events, and meetings, and allow other groups to come to use their space as a gathering center for their cause. Long-term, they envision a space where people can learn more about their pride community, come get tailored for their next interview, or utilize their food pantry if you’re someone who is in need. All of that, and more to come.

Knox Pride Fest, what they’re traditionally known for, is an open celebration of music, entertainment and speakers focused on promoting equality and inclusion for all. Throughout the weekend, vendors will have the opportunity to display information about their organization and/or business, sell or hand out items of interest and interact with our community to promote inclusion and equality for the LGBTQ+ and ally citizens of Knoxville and surrounding areas. They also host other events like a silent ArtOut auction, a Next-2-Nothing fashion show, a pride picnic, and more events throughout the year — with more added annually.

To learn more, go to knoxpride.com and read about all the wonderful work they are doing. In addition to raising money for Knox Pride this month, we will also be running a food drive at our Reading Series event on October 19th to help stock the food pantries Knox Pride runs. Please join us on the 19th with any goods you can share.

Sundress Reads: Review of Dire Moon Cartoons

Sundress Reads black-and-white logo with a sheep sitting on a stool next to the words "Sundress Reads." The sheep is wearing glasses and holding a cup filled with a hot drink in one hoof and holding an open book in the other.
A white mouse with wings and an extra set of eyes on its ears is holding a small red rocket and there are bullets over its shoulder. The background is seemingly the sky with clouds that is a foggy gray color. "Dire Moon Cartoons" is in the middle and "John Sullivan" is above that.

John Sullivan’s book, Dire Moon Cartoons (Weasel Press 2021), is an experimental collection of dramas mixes poetry and history lessons with drama to reflect the dangers of imbalances in power and insufficient empathy. Often through straightforward explanations of his work, Sullivan describes this new form as “Poetry, spoken word, and non-realistic/devised theatre are mutually-reinforcing, complementary forms, and the montage process jump-starts a cross-fertilization that often produces really interesting hybrids” (11). The dramatic format lends itself as pedagogical; poetic language captures the attention of mind and soul, ensuring the readers are attuned to Sullivan’s message.

In the first play, “Hey Fritz, Looks Like You Lost It All Again in the Ghosting,” Sullivan reimagines life after death. Memory is a constant figure in many minds; this idea that sticks around for the entirety of the book, personified by various characters’ struggles to achieve “amnesia,” as Sullivan puts it. Fritz Lang, a famous German filmmaker of the 20th century who fled Germany just before WWII and the play’s protagonist, begins with a lamentation. Death is not what he thought it would be: “What dreams may come, indeed,” he says, “Hamlet was right to worry” (Sullivan 16). Even in innocence, even in death, Lang is followed by the memories of this violent past. Lang’s inability to forget the atrocities committed in his home country, even when he had no hand in them, is the main motivator of his guilt-ridden afterlife. Sullivan subsequently reminds readers to hold themselves accountable for crimes against humanity, even as spectators, setting up the rest of the book as a sort of guide on how to (or how not to) lose oneself in empathy.

Sullivan often employs poetic language to set the scene. For example, Fritz Lang describes where he was when the war started, saying, “I was in Los Angeles, then, eating lotus, sucking skin, drinking in the sun, bobbing up and down in the surf like a postcard” (Sullivan 17). Fritz has some stored regret, perhaps survivor’s guilt, from the war. He got out. He’s practically on vacation. But how many millions of people did he leave behind? By using the Brechtian technique in his plays, Sullivan separates the audience from the action, reminding the reader that he intends for someone to learn from this language. Sullivan wants his readers to be aware they are spectating, making things personal.

Each section/scene of the book offers an artful look into the atrocities performed by those traditionally in power: Fritz gets new ears to “hear and do what he’s told to do” (32), actors are treated as props (32), and the “Mad Town Jump Rope Chant” offers another look at commonly used brainwashing techniques (33). Fritz Lang even offers a preparatory remark: “We should all have eyes all around our heads” (61), reminding the reader to pay attention to what’s going on around the world, not only to what they currently see.

As mentioned above, Sullivan discusses “amnesia” (67) as a way to avoid looking at reality head-on. He expertly captures the juxtaposition between what we are told by those in positions of power (i.e. propaganda) and what we can observe ourselves. For example, when the Mouse Van Gogh from the Big White Chair cannot get the “Helmut of Amnesia” over his “big dumb polyethylene ears” (Sullivan 73), he is forced to hear and remember all the violence that follows and all that came before. Over the course of the book, Sullivan also lays out the many ways people (and apparently mice) attempt to escape from reality. If it’s not amnesia, it’s substance abuse in the form of “the ultimate boss cannoli” (Sullivan 74) or objects of denial and power like Grey Sergeant’s “new-new eyes” and his “death wig” (Sullivan 123). When the Baby Rookie’s death is smeared on the white wall in The Baby’s Rookie Year, for example, denial transforms into a struggle to be remembered, even for heinous acts of violence.

Although Sullivan is critical of human actions, he is delicate in his treatment of said criticisms. His writing comes across as helpfully demonstrative and effectively engaging. Kookie word usage, fun sets and props, as well as wild, outlandish characters make for an informative, sometimes necessarily uncomfortable, but always entertaining set of dramas. Sullivan uses real human history to teach lessons on empathy, greed, power, and human nature; he tucks away the lessons in succinct humor and sarcasm interspersed with shocking acts of violence. And so, when Fritz Lang says, “I want a better history right here, right now…” (35), the reader feels it, too.

Dire Moon Cartoons is available through Weasel Press.

Blonde white woman smizes into camera.

Kenli Doss holds a BA in English and a BA in Theatre-Performance from Jacksonville State University. She is a freelance writer and actress based out of Alabama, and she spends her free time painting scenes from nature or writing poetry for her mom. Ken’s works appear in Something Else (a JSU literary arts journal), Bonemilk II by Gutslut Press, Snowflake Magazine, The Shakespeare Project’s Romeo and Juliet Study Guide and A Midsummer Night’s Dream Study Guide, and The White Cresset Arts Journal.

Meet Our New Intern: Zora Satchell

Photo by: Nicholas Nichols

A black and white photo of a Black bi-racial femme presenting person with curly black hair looking off to the side of the camera. They have a nose ring and sunglasses atop their head. They are wearing an ornate, versace-esque patterned high collar shirt underneath a teddy coat with a thin chain peaking out underneath a black strapped bag that is slung across their chest.

Stories served as my escape, whisking me away to wondrous worlds of adventure, magic, friendship, and romance. Television and movies were my initial portals, consuming every captivating narrative my parents allowed (and many that weren’t). Among them, tales of magic and thrilling adventures held me spellbound, stirring my imagination and igniting a lifelong love for storytelling.

Reading didn’t initially come naturally to me. I struggled deeply with learning to read and once I learned, I didn’t seek it out due to the memories of that painful time. But soon it became a consequence of missteps. As a punishment, TV would be taken away, and my father insisted I read a book of his choosing and write a report on it. However, the punishment soon evolved into an avenue for escape. Through books, I discovered stories of resilient girls yearning for acceptance, desperately seeking their place in the world. Manga like Skip Beat! and novels such as Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle became my companions, transporting me to realms where I felt understood.

Although I dreamt of writing, as a child, it seemed like an unattainable aspiration. However, when I entered college, the power of poetry beckoned me. I began writing poems for myself, realizing that I could also weave words lyrically. Encouraged by my creative writing professors and advisors, I started to see myself as a poet. As I read the works of Audre Lorde, Evie Shochley, Khadijah Queen, and Tina Chang, writing became a means of understanding the world I inhabited, delving into my family and friends, and how my culture shaped my experiences. It transformed from an escape into a vessel for bearing witness to the realities of life. I am immensely grateful to the friends and professors who supported and nurtured my writing journey. Their unwavering encouragement has been instrumental in my growth as a writer. They continue to inspire me to write each day, to delve deeper into the complexities of our world.

My journey from an avid consumer of stories to a writer has transformed my relationship with words, turning them into vehicles for understanding and bearing witness to the world around me.

As my writing journey has evolved, I have ventured beyond the realms of personal creativity and embarked on a path of community-based work with poetry. In this endeavor, I found solace in aligning with presses that prioritize uplifting diverse voices. For this reason, I look forward to being a part of the Sundress family.

Zora Satchell is a Black and Chinese American queer poet and cinephile who writes about mental illness, film, family, and friendship. She holds a degree in Ethnic Studies from Colorado State University. She was awarded the Brooklyn Poets fellowship for winter/spring 2021. She tweets from @Zora_thee_pony. She lives in Queens, New York.

Sundress Reads: Review of Everybody’s Favorite Hoe & Then Some

The book cover for Everybody's Favorite Hoe & Then Some. The background includes pink sunset clouds in the top right corner. In the bottom left corner sits a picture of a full moon. Layered over top is an astronaut. a pigeon, a stack of numbered JENGA blocks, and a retro-style razor. On top of the clouds floats two condom packets, one red, and one dark navy. An illustrated pomegranate sits in the top left corner.

“I think I am ready for a rim job” (Vine 1)—the opening line slams into readers. Jade Vine (it/its) pulls no punches in Everybody’s Favorite Hoe & Then Some (Ginger Bug Press, 2023). On the surface, both the title of the collection and the introductory stanzas can be viewed as salacious and intentionally inappropriate. Western societal norms have historically framed sex, especially queer love and sensuality, as taboo, dirty, and heretical. Vine, a queer, transgender/agender anarchist, aims to disrupt the status quo and embrace love, sex, and fluidity through its writings.

Everybody’s Favorite Hoe & Then Some goes beyond presenting the notions of kinky intimacies. It examines the human condition in the way of comfortability and real, tangible tenderness. In the same opening poem, “hmu for anal play regular play plain old loving,” the speaker reflects on the pure love and happiness of their relationship. The relationship, the bond, is deeper than sexual pursuits. It’s about closeness and the expectation of simple intimacy between people in love.  

Sex, in this context, is a vessel for love. No matter how sex-positive Generation Z presents itself, the undercurrents of judgment and shame still flow through our conversations. This generation is still petrified of thoughts of sex. We cower away from them until they nestle behind our ribcage as a festering hurt. The way sex is communicated in our lives leaves room for humiliation. But, as Vine asserts, there is nothing perverse about love, as long as it is expressed safely and consensually. 

Vine isn’t afraid of rawness. Vine loves unabashedly and without shame. It writes with a cadence stemming from unfiltered consciousness. The traditional narrative structure is abandoned for an effusive way of expression. The collection is reminiscent of a FaceTime call with a close friend rather than a poet miles away from the audience. Reading this book means stepping inside of Vine’s mind and, instead of intruding, you are welcomed into its innermost thoughts. 

Everybody’s Favorite Hoe & Then Some is not just a stream of randomized thoughts or the mechanisms of a sex-obsessed author. There’s relatability in its quick pace, which mimics racing thoughts and the gathering of sensibilities. The book conveys a passion that most people are afraid to articulate, yet exists inside of all of us: romantic, sexual, or, an artistic and fraying blend of both. Vine leaves the audience to decide. 

In “everybody is my love interest and i’m interested,” the reader is forced into a sense of isolation. The speaker can only yearn from afar, yielding their emotions to another person across the room. They imagine an entire life together, carve out a space in the universe for them and this other person to exist freely and entirely. Vine writes:

“i let the oranges full with their disgusting pulp fall where they fall

  i catch persimmons & ur glance in the break time 

when you look away i admire ur shadow’s form so burly and so fragile

  it could break if i stepped on it”  (Vine 1-4).

It has become their thoughts. They’re reminded of their time of longing, of vying for the attention of someone so close they felt galaxies away. It’s lust. It’s love. It’s the freedom that comes with imagination. They live out their entire life with this person in a matter of seconds. 

Moreover, Vine collects snippets of humanity in its poems. Love is all-consuming. It sears you from the inside out, leaving not even a husk behind. Vine encapsulates longing, loss, and a sense of desperation in its work. The overwhelming desire to belong to someone. As an equal. As a lover.  

“oh god, i accidentally cut my pussy trying to shave it” introduces a new kind of melancholy. There’s solitude from inside the speaker’s body. Vine writes: 

“my lashes don’t curl up the way my toes do

  every boy i have brought home smelled like cigarettes & borrowed time

  all my beautiful dresses are borrowed from my more beautiful mother” (Vine 7-9).

No doubt this is a genderqueer/trans allegory, which I acknowledge I am ill-equipped to effectively comment on. How they interact with the world and themselves is revealed through longer lines, replacing the rushing motions of their mind.

Everybody’s Favorite Hoe & Then Some follows a speaker through the dizzying tale of lust and love, and what it feels like to be completely entranced and bewitched. Vine’s poetry is brazen in its queerness and kinkiness. Love should not be hidden behind hushed whispers and critical glances. Queer love should be celebrated in the public eye.

Everybody’s Favorite Hoe & Then Some is available for pre-order from Ginger Bug Press

K Slade (she/her) is a Black gothic and speculative fiction writer pursuing a BS in Digital Journalism and a Japanese minor at Appalachian State University. She currently serves as Visual Managing Editor for The Appalachian, her collegiate newspaper, and specializes in multimedia journalism. Horror media deeply inspired her love for the craft and in the future, K wants to write a script for a horror game. After undergrad, she hopes to move to New York and pursue an MFA in Creative Writing. 

Interview with Caleb Curtiss, Author of Age of Forgiveness

Ahead of the release of his debut full-length poetry collection, Age of Forgiveness, Caleb Curtiss spoke with Sundress Publications editorial intern Jen Gayda Gupta about the meaning of forgiveness, how memories rebuild, and the longing for stillness.

Jen Gayda Gupta: What does forgiveness mean to you? Whose responsibility is it to forgive?

Caleb Curtiss: In Judith Herman’s Trauma & Recovery, she writes, “true forgiveness cannot be granted until the perpetrator has sought and earned it through confession, repentance, and restitution.” I like her angle here. The onus lies with the perpetrator or the negligent party to be accountable to those they’ve harmed.

JGG: You write, “Like a body, or a memory, it has rebuilt itself over time.” How do you think memories rebuild themselves? What is the impact of this rebuilding on grief?

CC: Like dreams, I think memories have to be reconstructed in order for us to understand and grow from them. When we piece together our pasts, we do so with adult brains and in the highly-sensical language of adulthood. But when we experience loss, that highly-sensical language isn’t much use. We have to seek out new materials to build with, a language for our loss.

JGG: There appears to be a separation of the speaker from himself in poems like “Photo Shot on Undeveloped Film” and “I Am Whole, I Am Whole.” What does this separation do for the speaker?

CC: Because this book focuses so closely on my own personal loss, I was aware of, and maybe even sensitive to, how it might read to some as a kind of trauma dump. The poems you mention here, along with a handful of others, are meant to texture the connection between the authorial presence in Age of Forgiveness with its speaker. By presenting my speaker as a kind of character in these poems, I am encouraging my reader to hear him and his voice as a dramatic interpretation of the poems I’ve written for him.

JGG: There are five “Self-Portrait” poems and many references to photos in this collection. How do you believe photos—snapshots of moments—immortalize us and our loved ones?

CC: The simple act of recognition can be a powerful emotional experience. Even if I wasn’t present when the photo was taken, when I recognize the subject of a snapshot, it can transport me back to the moment it captures: spontaneous, fragile, and still somehow permanent. It’s either a mistake that the brain corrects within a few milliseconds, or a momentary little wish fulfillment that allows me to see people I have no way of seeing anymore, or a way to be in times and places that no longer exist.

Maybe you’ve felt this way before. It reminds me of the sensation I have the day after I receive bad news: right when I wake up, I can feel my brain contorting itself to keep the undesired knowledge out of my conscious mind, suspend it in the sludge of half-known truths so I can experience the world, just for a moment, as it is not.

JGG: Tell me about the visual poetry that separates each section. What is the significance of the rabbit that appears both on the cover and in each piece of art?

CC: One of the paradoxes I try to acknowledge in my process is language’s power to express the inexpressible even as it falls short of doing so completely. The visual erasures I made for Age of Forgiveness remind me, and hopefully my reader, of this paradox while also offering up a kind of shadow narrative that compliments and contextualizes each section. It might be helpful to think of the rabbit drawing I made as the main character of that shadow narrative.

JGG: Many poems contain imagined truths—reconstructions of things that happened out of the speaker’s sight. Can you talk about the role of truth and how it intersects with memory?

CC: Whether I like it or not, every day I have to concede that I share my own subjective reality with those held by the rest of the world. Poems that recall facts for the sake of bearing witness don’t interest me as much as those that aspire to build from their own subjective position an idea that resounds as truth.

JGG: There seems to be a longing for stillness in poems like “Possum” and “Still.” What is the benefit of being still?

CC: That’s a nice catch. I think I do feel drawn to stillness, especially when it appears unexpectedly. I remember when my little brother would pause the video tape I was watching to prank me. We did it to each other, I’m sure, but whenever he caught me, I would find myself in a kind of altered state, again, probably for only a millisecond or two.

It doesn’t entirely matter how long. What matters is, there was a moment when my brain would attempt telekinesis and will the tape forward before I’d catch myself. Moments like this are special, even if they’re a little scary, too: when the gears stop advancing the tape but light still passes through its transparency.

JGG: Can you speak about the role of absence in this collection? How does the absence of something or someone shape the space of our current moment?

CC: This collection looks at absence a lot like you or I might look at a blivet or a Magic Eye poster. There’s always something there.

JGG: You write, “the dead always, eventually, become tropes of the living.” What do you believe is the role of a writer in writing about the dead?

CC: I don’t think the living owe the dead anything. As it stands, they aren’t impacted when we express love or resentment or indifference to them. Of course, we are affected by these things. If anything, as a poet, I feel an obligation to the poem I am writing.

JGG: The final poem in this collection, “Doe,” captures a violence towards women that is shown in several earlier poems. What is the significance of the doe being mistaken for a buck?

CC: The rhetoric we generally use to discuss domestic abuse or gender-motivated violence comes from the necessity to determine and recognize accountability. In the world of “Doe” the rhetoric of justice, accountability, restoration, etc. doesn’t really exist. It’s a different place, different from any of the other places in the collection, even as it maps the book as a whole to some degree.

Could it be that the doe was in fact mistaken for a buck as it appears? It could be, but my hope with “Doe” is that its clarity grows, over time, out of its ambiguity.

When I started writing this one, the manuscript itself was still coming together. As it did, the poem changed quite a bit, from a sonnet to blank verse to hexametric couplets, and so on until it became a prose poem. The point being: as the book changed, “Doe” also changed.

Pre-Order your copy of Age of Forgiveness today!

Photo of the author of "Age of Forgiveness," Caleb Curtiss.

Caleb Curtiss is a teacher and a poet from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois. His poems, essays,  fiction, and visual erasures have appeared in Image, American Short Fiction, New England  Review, Passages North, Witch Craft Magazine, and The Southern Review. Age of Forgiveness is his first full-length collection. 

Photo of Sundress Editorial Intern, Jen Gayda Gupta.

Jen Gayda Gupta is a poet, educator, and wanderer. She earned her BA in English at the University of Connecticut and her MA in Teaching English from New York University. Jen lives, writes, and travels across the U.S. in a tiny camper with her husband and their dog. Her work has been published in Up the Staircase, Rattle, Jellyfish Review, Sky Island Journal, The Shore, and others. You can find her @jengaydagupta and jengaydagupta.com.

Project Bookshelf: Annie Fay Meitchik

A photo of a book with an orange cover titled "I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf" at Powell's Books in Portland.

In many ways, what I consider to be my bookshelf is amorphous, shared, and exists in numerous locations. The majority of books that have shaped me awaited my discovery during silent reading time in my elementary school classrooms or on library shelves. I love books for the way they teach empathy and make knowledge accessible. My passion for books is deeply connected to the sense of peace I find when entering libraries. These institutions represent to me equal access to information and serve as reminders that art and literature are so deeply valuable that we’ve collectively ensured that they are free and available to everyone.

My bedroom is decorated with books—piled neatly on the floor, stacked on shelves by color, and covering the top of my piano. A lot of the books in my home are relics from my childhood: dog-eared copies of The Babysitter’s Club, well-loved Little Critter books, The Mysterious Benedict Society, and my prized edition of Alice Through the Looking Glass.

As I read well over 100 books every year, I acquire the vast majority of them from public libraries, so, I do not own many of my favorites. However, I do keep an evolving list of my recommendations on the homepage of my portfolio website. I have a special gift for matching people with the right books and enjoy sharing my personal collection with friends and family—Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket has traveled 3,000 miles from my shelf and back.

A photo of three books stacked on top of each other with black spines. The books (from top to bottom) are: "The Decameron Project" compiled by The New York Times Magazine, "The Fran Lebowitz Reader" by Fran Lebowitz, and "Just Kids" by Patti Smith.

What I find so wonderful about books is their ability to be shared and their lack of a need for ownership. While there are a handful of books I enjoy owning and rereading—The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and Little Weirds by Jenny Slate—the majority of books I’ve loved float in and out of libraries, gaining something magical and intangible with each new reader. So much of what I enjoy about reading is the sense of belonging I feel sharing an experience, a narrative, with strangers who I may cross paths with someday to bond over a favorite author, quote, or story.

Eleven books on a library shelf.
A black and white photo of a woman, the author of this post.

Annie Fay Meitchik is a writer and visual artist with her BA in Creative Writing from The New School and a Certificate in Children’s Book Writing from UC San Diego. Through a career in publishing, Annie aims to amplify the voices of marginalized identities while advocating for equality and inclusivity in art/educational spaces. Her work has been published by Matter Press, 12th Street Literary Journal, and UNiDAYS. To learn more, please visit: www.anniefay.com.