Dena Igusti’s Cut Woman (Game Over Books, 2020) is a searing collection of poetry that illustrates the splitting of selves portrayed through a splintering of the body as a result of violence. Igusti’s poems are starkly embodied as they interrogate our understanding of how violence permeates, how national and international wars can be read in the individual: “maybe this is why we name // every skin contact // a war” (“sacrifice (reprise) or trajectory”). Through this text, we see a passionate longing for the speaker’s voice and body to be brought back together, a reunion of selves that is representative of a transformation of grief into something burning with life.

Cut Woman traces the many iterations of violence rippling through the speaker’s life, beginning with the horrors of undergoing female genital mutilation, to the racism and terrorism inherent in xenophobia and Islamophobia. Detailing the Reformasi Dikorupsi movement of 2019 in Indonesia, which pushed for more protective laws and just treatment by the government and police force, Igusti’s poems force readers to question America’s response to other countries’ traumas, and how this response robs one of autonomy. At the same time, Igusti turns the gaze of the speaker to America, and how racial disparities are incessant and pervading: “the way you easily // call my people // terrorist // a threat // to your white purity // you had to cut // out” (“altar”). Igusti’s use of the image of “cutting” or “cutting out” throughout the collection speaks to the forced act of separation and, in turn, the immeasurable losses these poems seek to understand.

This collection weaves together the lasting effects of inheritance and familial trauma, as one generation informs the next: “i’m like my father / i leave half-carcasses // of me // everywhere i go” (“sacrifice (reprise) or trajectory”). Such violence shows up in encounters with lovers, encounters with the media, and encounters with the self. Cut Woman portrays a complicated relationship with other women in the speaker’s life, illustrating the ways in which post-colonialism systemically worms its way into communities. The women are at turns violent (they are the ones that facilitate the speaker’s female genital mutilation), and at other turns resilient and bolstering: “but the women before me // brought me // here // not because they died for me // but because they lived with me” (“altar”).

Throughout all of this is the ever-present inability to bridge seemingly disparate experiences through language, as if the “country I was never supposed to step foot in // gives me words // for what was never // supposed / to happen to me” (“altar”). One of the many powers of Cut Woman, then, is that it nonetheless achieves this as a collection of poetry: it puts language to experiences and truths that we as readers cannot turn away from. 

At the beginning of a handful of poems are epigraphs of lyrics from different bands, mainly Indonesian groups and singers/songwriters of color, including Nidji, Ratu, Reza Artamevia, Jhene Aiko, and The Sunset Kings. Beyond effectively drawing in other voices to the speaker’s conversation, these nods to different musicians are indicative of the rhythm of Igusti’s poems and the ways in which they are meant to be spoken.

As described on their website, Dena Igusti is a queer Indonesian Muslim poet, playwright, and producer born and raised in Queens, New York, and the co-founder of Asian multidisciplinary arts collective UNCOMMON;YOU and multimedia platform Short Line Review. They are a 2018 NYC Youth Poet Laureate Ambassador and a 2017 Urban Word Federal Hall Fellow, along with many other honors. They have performed at The Brooklyn Museum, The Apollo Theater, the 2018 Teen Vogue Summit, and several venues internationally. Cut Woman is a powerful addition to their already impressive repertoire.

Cut Woman is available at Game Over Books

Hannah Soyer is a queer disabled writer born and living in the Midwest. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cosmopolitan, About Place Journal, Evocations Review, The Rumpus, Entropy, Mikrokosmos Journal, Brain Mill Press, Disability Visibility Project, Rooted in Rights, Sinister Wisdom, and Peach Mag. She is the founder of This Body is Worthy, a project aimed at celebrating bodies outside of mainstream societal ideals, and Words of Reclamation, a space for disabled writers.

“What job can you get with an English degree?” is a tired, repetitive question that I find myself asked often. One reason I dislike this question is because I truly have no idea! My ever-changing answer runs from the practical to the fanciful: bookseller, editor, farmer, baker, someone who sits in a sunny patch of grass and reads books all day, librarian, etc. The other reason is because such a question feels so limiting and unimaginative, like if there’s not one capitalist career path then an English degree must be futile. However, I believe that there is nothing more worthwhile and meaningful than slowing down, getting quiet, and listening to other people’s stories.

Most of my life has been spent holding and being held by stories. Ever since I was little, I’ve run wild and barefoot through the world, imbued by a sense of adventure and romance from the books I read voraciously. Whether it be staying up past my bedtime with a book light and curled paperback in my hands, or nestled in with a hardcover, cat, and cup of tea, reading is pretty much all I’ve ever known. I even happily spent my lunch breaks in elementary school helping the librarian organize her bookshelves! For me, books don’t feel like an escape from the world, but rather another way of being fully present in it: curious, engaged, and connected to other beings. I always feel so grateful and full of light and wonder when I can enter such magical stories. 

When I became a writing consultant in my university’s writing center, I knew that I enjoyed reading and editing other people’s words more than I enjoyed writing. Though maybe I first realized this when I spent more time editing my friends’ college admission essays than actually writing my own. My favorite part of university has definitely been my poetry classes. I didn’t read much poetry until college, but when I finally did, it felt like discovering an entirely new language to think and dream in. From Adrienne Rich to Tracy K. Smith to Robyn Schiff, I had no idea that poems could be such intimate, electrifying things. I especially love our peer workshops because of the way we collaborate and laugh and share in the joy and labor of creating poetry. It has been such a luxury to spend way too much time debating the meaning of a single word, or sharing what each other’s poems make us feel and see. 

I always thought I would have to become an author or a poet in order to be a part of the literary world. However, I know that reading, editing, and publishing stories is just as vital as the actual writing and creating part of it. This is why I am so honored to have been given the opportunity to work for Sundress Publications as an editorial intern; I want to learn how to help others tell their stories, and I hope to contribute to a community of people who know that everyone has something urgent and beautiful to share with the world.

Abigail Renner is a junior at George Washington University studying English and American Studies. She is currently a writing consultant in her university writing center, where she loves unearthing writers’ voices and reading across a myriad of genres. She dreams of living on a farm, filling her shelves with romance novels, and laughing with friends over cups of peppermint tea.

Sundress Publications announces its tenth annual e-chapbook contest. Authors of all genres are invited to submit manuscripts during our reading period of March 1 to May 31, 2021. Poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and hybrid work are welcome, as are visual poetry, poetry comics, and visual hybrid works. Manuscripts must be between twelve to twenty-six (12-26) pages in length, with a page break between individual pieces. Individual pieces may have been previously published in anthologies, print journals, online journals, etc., but cannot have appeared in any full-length collection, including self-published collections. Both single-author and collaborative dual-author manuscripts will be considered. Manuscripts must be primarily in English; translations are not eligible.

The entry fee is $10 per manuscript, though the fee will be waived for entrants who purchase or pre-order any Sundress title. Authors may submit as many chapbook manuscripts as they like, so long as each is accompanied by a separate reading fee or purchase/pre-order. Entrants can place book orders or pay submission fees at our store. Entry fees are waived for all BIPOC writers.

The winner will receive $200, plus publication as a beautiful full-color PDF available for free exclusively online. Runners-up will also be considered for publication.

All manuscripts should include a cover page (with only the title of the manuscript), table of contents, dedication (if applicable), and acknowledgments for previous publications. These pages will not be included in the total page count. Identifying information should not appear in any part of the manuscript. Authors with a significant relationship to the judge (friends, relatives, colleagues, past or present students, etc.) are discouraged from entering.

To submit, attach your manuscript as a DOCX or PDF file along with your order number for a Sundress title or the entry fee to contest@sundresspublications.com. Simultaneous submission to other presses is acceptable, but please notify Sundress immediately if the manuscript has been accepted elsewhere. Multiple submissions are allowed, but a separate entry fee must accompany each entry. No revisions will be allowed during the contest judging period. Winners will be announced in late summer of 2021.

This contest will be judged by librecht baker, the author of vetiver (Finishing Line Press, 2017) and an English Professor. baker frolics with Black Girl Magic Creative Series and joined Radar Productions’ Sister Spit 2020 tour. her full-length play, “Taciturn Beings,” was a semi-finalist for the 43rd annual Bay Area Playwright’s Festival and part of The Vagrancy’s Blossoming: A New Play Reading Series 2019. baker’s one-act dramedy, “Afterlife or Bust,” will be produced by Q Youth Foundation in 2020. her other writings, i.e. poetry, appear in ACCOLADES: A Women Who Submit Anthology, Solace: Writing Refuge, & LGBTQ Women of Color, Bone Bouquet (Issue 8.1), Sinister Wisdom 107 – Black Lesbians: We are the Revolution!, and other publications, but can also be experienced via Women Who Submit’s IGTV for their ACCOLADES online reading series and The Vagrancy’s “The Life and Dead Of,” written by June Carryl, via The Vagrancy’s webpage.