This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from Rupture by Adrie Rose (Gold Line Press 2023).
Spring—& Everyone Seems so Fucking Happy
No seeds to sow. The taste of silt. Scorched grass. My rage? There is no time, no cradle for it. This morning, shaky again, I drop the spoon, flip over the bowl of oatmeal as I try to stir it cool.
Once my living children are tucked into school, I return to the frost forest, the banks above the ice river where despair can slip along, carving the rocks, sending moss as messenger for all that was taken.
I walked where we harvested wild blueberries, he writes. The ghost and I do not write back.
I want my body before it knew his body. I gather and weave what protections I can — yarrow, knot- weed, wild rose.
With no harbor for anger, exhaustion pulls me down in its net.
The sheets are a shroud and I will sew them closed with my breath.
I trust no one, especially not myself anymore. I ask the land — Bones of the Mother I have loved, open to me.
Adrie Rose is a poet and editor. Her work recently appeared at Poets.org, The Baltimore Review, Nimrod, the Ploughshares blog & more. Her poem “flare” won the 2022 Anne Bradstreet Prize with the Academy of American Poets, and she won the the Eleanor Cederstrom Prize, and the Mary Augusta Jordan Prize in 2022. Her poem “The Anthropocene” was nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize and she won the Elizabeth Babcock Poetry Prize, the Ethel Olin Corbin Prize, and the Gertrude Posner Spencer Prize in 2021. She has work forthcoming in anthologies with Porkbelly Press and Anhinga Press. She studied creative writing at Smith College, Bennington College and the SC Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities. She is currently writing a novel and finalizing a poetry manuscript.
Joey Gould, who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), along with transfinity (forthcoming from Lambhouse Books). Their recent work appears in Solstice, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology. They write book reviews as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys, and have also placed reviews in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and the Sundress blog.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from Rupture by Adrie Rose (Gold Line Press 2023).
The Bell
I wanted to know what it was like to receive without hesitation and so I was the mortar and you the pestle, I was the pool and you the waterfall, I was the bell and you the tongue, until I was not myself, only the humming only the golden, being rung and rung and rung.
Adrie Rose is a poet and editor. Her work recently appeared at Poets.org, The Baltimore Review, Nimrod, the Ploughshares blog & more. Her poem “flare” won the 2022 Anne Bradstreet Prize with the Academy of American Poets, and she won the the Eleanor Cederstrom Prize, and the Mary Augusta Jordan Prize in 2022. Her poem “The Anthropocene” was nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize and she won the Elizabeth Babcock Poetry Prize, the Ethel Olin Corbin Prize, and the Gertrude Posner Spencer Prize in 2021. She has work forthcoming in anthologies with Porkbelly Press and Anhinga Press. She studied creative writing at Smith College, Bennington College and the SC Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities. She is currently writing a novel and finalizing a poetry manuscript.
Joey Gould, who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), along with transfinity (forthcoming from Lambhouse Books). Their recent work appears in Solstice, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology. They write book reviews as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys, and have also placed reviews in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and the Sundress blog.
Barbara Marie Minney’s fourth poetry book, A Woman in Progress (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2024), is unapologetically authentic, much like the author herself. Minney’s work explores the vulnerable experiences with gender, memory, love, and transformation, allowing the readers to grasp at understanding the soul of a woman’s becoming – and being – herself. From the opening poem, “No Experience Needed,” detailing a critique of her artistic credibility and paving the way for the rest of the unflinching but expansive collection, Minney makes it clear that her uniqueness “counts” for something, something that will neither apologize nor dilute the complexity of her existence.
A Woman in Progress is a memoir, an act of reclamation, and a bold assertion of identity all in one. A section that particularly stands out is:
I have lived most of my life being what others wanted me to be. Now that I am closer to death than birth, I want to feel like I’m living for myself. I have experienced anxiety and depression and even contemplated suicide. I looked at suicide as a romantic way to die. I once asked a psychic if she thought I would die by suicide. She said no one had ever asked her that question before. Then, she answered no, but hedged her bet by adding unless I was ill, and the pain became overwhelming. She added that I did not fear suicide. (Minney 25)
Despite the visceral themes of despair, mental illness, and dysphoria, Minney’s poetry is a journey reaching for light and hope, resisting collapse and even shifting power dynamics. Written in a fragmented way reflective of trauma’s nonlinear unfolding, the title poem, “A Woman in Progress,” becomes a manifesto of the reclamation of power. It opens with a male narrator cuffed to St. Andrew’s cross, nauseated by the recurring flogging and feelings of shame. As the poem concludes, the perspective shifts, and it becomes apparent that the now female narrator has taken charge, flogger in her hand. The duality and yet monologue-like fluidity of self turns the imagery of domination and submission on its head, not for spectacle but for profound metaphor.
Minney’s work is arguably the most profound and authentic when she discusses her wife, Marilyn, whom she dedicates their book to. Both “October 7, 2018” and “Tomato Sandwich” are filled with intimacy, humor, and pride. These poems are not idealized and cheesy, rather, they’re lived-in, honest, and timeless. From the “Tomato Sandwich,” the sandwich and “Eleven on the McDonald’s pickle scale” (Minney 18) become more than just humorous quirks—they become symbols of heritage, queerness, nostalgia, and a shared life.
Minney’s unrestrained method of describing her love is also reflected in her most vulnerable poems dealing with her father’s death, suicidal ideation, and mental illness. “Depression Poems,” “Psychiatrists Are (Not) for Sissies,” and “Silent Suffering” are so beautifully simple, filled with raw emotion, fear, exploration of death, and hope. In “Masochistic Murmurs,” Minney writes,
overcoming humiliation and abuse,
feeling shame for my desires
but having the courage
to pursue them anyway
appreciating how fucking empowering
it can be to be female,
a sign that I am finally beginning
to learn to love myself. (36)
The author acknowledges that her transformation is a slow and gradual death and rebirth, perpetually stuck in a liminal space. She describes her process as: “Confused by not wanting to die / but not wanting to be here anymore either / in that void of nothingness” (Minney 30). The simplicity and bluntness of her language radiate candor.
That, precisely, sets her and this book apart. Poem after poem, Minney refuses to romanticize her journey but also refuses shame, making “A Woman in Progress” deeply human and transformation. A must-read for those seeking a deeper understanding of the transgender experience and navigating their own identity, as Minney’s title suggests, an act of continued resistance, redefinition, and radical love.
Noor Chang is a writer and aspiring editor with a rich, multicultural background. Half-Syrian and half-Korean, she spent most of her life in the Middle East, specifically Syria, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates before moving to Knoxville, Tennessee, to pursue higher education. She is a student at the University of Tennessee, double majoring in English Literature and Jazz Studies. Noor’s diverse upbringing has shaped her perspective and fueled her passion for storytelling, leading her to explore a variety of creative avenues, including writing, music, and cultural exploration. An avid pianist, Noor enjoys playing music with friends and immersing herself in different genres. Her love for travel allows her to experience new cultures and she hopes to continue traveling for the rest of her life. In her free time, Noor is often found with a good book, making music, or working out to stay active and grounded.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from Rupture by Adrie Rose (Gold Line Press 2023).
The Cello
As if I had only heard music through a fuzzy radio, and suddenly found myself in the middle of the orchestra
with the timpani vibrating up through my feet, and above all the piccolo soaring toward its peak. I felt every small
movement. I kne whow the unbroken pond feels when the stone enters, the undulation of each ripple towards shore. For days,
when I thought of you, my hand went to my throat, my body vibrating, like the cello when the soloist
has set down her bow — polished with sweat, the strings still humming, see how even the air
around them shimmers.
Adrie Rose is a poet and editor. Her work recently appeared at Poets.org, The Baltimore Review, Nimrod, the Ploughshares blog & more. Her poem “flare” won the 2022 Anne Bradstreet Prize with the Academy of American Poets, and she won the the Eleanor Cederstrom Prize, and the Mary Augusta Jordan Prize in 2022. Her poem “The Anthropocene” was nominated for a 2020 Pushcart Prize and she won the Elizabeth Babcock Poetry Prize, the Ethel Olin Corbin Prize, and the Gertrude Posner Spencer Prize in 2021. She has work forthcoming in anthologies with Porkbelly Press and Anhinga Press. She studied creative writing at Smith College, Bennington College and the SC Governor’s School for the Arts & Humanities. She is currently writing a novel and finalizing a poetry manuscript.
Joey Gould, who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), along with transfinity (forthcoming from Lambhouse Books). Their recent work appears in Solstice, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology. They write book reviews as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys, and have also placed reviews in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and the Sundress blog.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from Demolition Suite by Willa Carroll (Split Rock Press 2023).
Score for the Body as Time Machine
Rewind the sun | set back the burning clock | sweep debris into a moon | score a cluster of stars | Reenact plate tectonics | great oxygenations | Swim trilobite swim | as flowers precede the bees | as whales flunk back into the oceans | Mountains trending up | seas retreat | glaciers advance | We invent the kiss | record an inch of history | grease wheels | melt poles | Volcanoes wear down to nubs | buildings to braille | Nuclear waste | takes the time it takes | along with coral revival | & continental rifts | Decamp with the moon | in galactic drift | Dial down the sun | red giant | white dwarf | runaway star
Willa Carroll is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and writer. She’s the author of Nerve Chorus(2018) and Demolition Suite (2023), finalist for the Tomaž Šalamun Prize. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Poem-A-Day, The Slowdown, Tin House, and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of awards from Narrative Magazine,Tupelo Quarterly, Tokyo International Cinema Awards, and the International Migration & Environmental Film Festival. Her multimedia collaborations have been featured in EcoTheo, Interim, TriQuarterly, and film festivals in six countries. Her cross-genre performance work has been presented at numerous New York venues. With an MFA from Bennington College, she lived in NYC for twenty-five years and is now based upstate.
Joey Gould, who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), along with transfinity (forthcoming from Lambhouse Books). Their recent work appears in Solstice, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology. They write book reviews as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys, and have also placed reviews in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and the Sundress blog.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from Demolition Suite by Willa Carroll (Split Rock Press 2023).
Score for Rewilding Body
Invite the lichen | to colonize the rocks | dress up the deserts | tamp down the dust storms | Summon the moss | to hold the soil | microbe circus underfoot | Enlist fungi | to sop up oil | spilled in the brownfield lot | Big bad wolves | make your comeback | rewind trophic cascades | revive the wild | culling elk | Save shrubs for mice & bison | devoured by owls & mountain lions | Spare willow | for beavers in winter | governing rivers | Recruit otters | their pelts once called | soft gold
Willa Carroll is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and writer. She’s the author of Nerve Chorus(2018) and Demolition Suite (2023), finalist for the Tomaž Šalamun Prize. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Poem-A-Day, The Slowdown, Tin House, and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of awards from Narrative Magazine,Tupelo Quarterly, Tokyo International Cinema Awards, and the International Migration & Environmental Film Festival. Her multimedia collaborations have been featured in EcoTheo, Interim, TriQuarterly, and film festivals in six countries. Her cross-genre performance work has been presented at numerous New York venues. With an MFA from Bennington College, she lived in NYC for twenty-five years and is now based upstate.
Joey Gould, who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), along with transfinity (forthcoming from Lambhouse Books). Their recent work appears in Solstice, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology. They write book reviews as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys, and have also placed reviews in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and the Sundress blog.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from Demolition Suite by Willa Carroll (Split Rock Press 2023).
Score for Somnambulant Body
Begin in rivers | green with leached nitrogen | Begin in dirt underfoot | Listen to the insect chorus | microbe empire | My father sleeps in the loam | in the low clay | I’m accountable only to the wind | & rocks shedding their skins | in acid laced rain | I lie under a blue tarp ceiling | dreaming a modern ark | with a hole in its hull | All morning gone | swimming in the marrow | All afternoon spent | in the wet archive | behind the eyes | After the flood | salt kills the pines | Out in another scorched forest | animal bones are slow | skull a bowl | Our dust on loan | from a shapely nebula
Willa Carroll is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and writer. She’s the author of Nerve Chorus(2018) and Demolition Suite (2023), finalist for the Tomaž Šalamun Prize. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Poem-A-Day, The Slowdown, Tin House, and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of awards from Narrative Magazine,Tupelo Quarterly, Tokyo International Cinema Awards, and the International Migration & Environmental Film Festival. Her multimedia collaborations have been featured in EcoTheo, Interim, TriQuarterly, and film festivals in six countries. Her cross-genre performance work has been presented at numerous New York venues. With an MFA from Bennington College, she lived in NYC for twenty-five years and is now based upstate.
Joey Gould, who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), along with transfinity (forthcoming from Lambhouse Books). Their recent work appears in Solstice, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology. They write book reviews as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys, and have also placed reviews in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and the Sundress blog.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from Demolition Suite by Willa Carroll (Split Rock Press 2023).
Score for the Body with Bioaccumulation
Save us from cold moons | lakes of liquid methane | sunless planets | balls with no spin | no high noon | no big crimson | behind clouds seeded with benzene | Give us our sun | hot queen | radiation maven | sporting a burning corona | My father lived in the desert | between a gypsum mine | & Superstition Mountain | He storied the last wild condors | six foot wings | their blood spiked with DDT | I know the taste | famous poison | lacing a generation of mother’s milk | When he lost his way | under the punishing sun | he sucked white sap from cacti | pulling spines from his tongue
Willa Carroll is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and writer. She’s the author of Nerve Chorus(2018) and Demolition Suite (2023), finalist for the Tomaž Šalamun Prize. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Poem-A-Day, The Slowdown, Tin House, and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of awards from Narrative Magazine,Tupelo Quarterly, Tokyo International Cinema Awards, and the International Migration & Environmental Film Festival. Her multimedia collaborations have been featured in EcoTheo, Interim, TriQuarterly, and film festivals in six countries. Her cross-genre performance work has been presented at numerous New York venues. With an MFA from Bennington College, she lived in NYC for twenty-five years and is now based upstate.
Joey Gould, who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), along with transfinity (forthcoming from Lambhouse Books). Their recent work appears in Solstice, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology. They write book reviews as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys, and have also placed reviews in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and the Sundress blog.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from Demolition Suite by Willa Carroll (Split Rock Press 2023).
Score for the Body as Cautionary Tale
Sing at the feast | bowls of gravel & wire | sawdust bread | rice carved from the moon’s deciduous teeth | Wash it down | with remediated rivers | ablated glaciers | hot blooded seas | Chase it | with industrial slush | crude plumes | holy petroleum | Can you hear the bells | runaway exponentials | ticking cells | Dress for extreme weather | decked in feathers & tremors | Sun reddens at noon | in forest fire conditions | as molecules sink into the water table | as the field’s yellow | caution tape | ribbons the wind | After the storm | my father’s hammer | craters the walls
Willa Carroll is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and writer. She’s the author of Nerve Chorus(2018) and Demolition Suite (2023), finalist for the Tomaž Šalamun Prize. Her poems have appeared in AGNI, Poem-A-Day, The Slowdown, Tin House, and elsewhere. She’s the recipient of awards from Narrative Magazine,Tupelo Quarterly, Tokyo International Cinema Awards, and the International Migration & Environmental Film Festival. Her multimedia collaborations have been featured in EcoTheo, Interim, TriQuarterly, and film festivals in six countries. Her cross-genre performance work has been presented at numerous New York venues. With an MFA from Bennington College, she lived in NYC for twenty-five years and is now based upstate.
Joey Gould, who served as Sundress Academy for the Arts Spring 2024 Writer in Residence, wrote The Acute Avian Heart (2019, Lily Poetry Review) & Penitent > Arbiter (2022, Lily Poetry Review), along with transfinity (forthcoming from Lambhouse Books). Their recent work appears in Solstice, Memezine, and Defunkt Magazine’s Surreal Confessional Anthology. They write book reviews as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys, and have also placed reviews in Glass: A Journal of Poetry and the Sundress blog.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Ashley Hajimirsadeghi. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, July 27th, 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!
Ashley Hajimirsadeghi is an Iranian American multimedia writer, artist, and journalist. Her creative writing has appeared in Passages North, The Cortland Review, Salamander, RHINO, Salt Hill, and The Journal, among others. Her work is the recipient of awards and support from the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa, Fulbright Program, U.S. State Department, Brooklyn Poets, and the University of Arizona
Each month we split donations with a community partner. Our community partner this month is Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors (TNJFON). TNJFON provides free or low-cost immigration legal services to low-income immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. This aid is given regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, ideology, gender identity, or sexual orientation. TNJFON has assisted thousands of individual clients in a variety of immigration matters since their founding in 2008, with a focus on representing low-income individuals who are eligible for humanitarian forms of relief. To learn more about TNJFON, visit their website here.
If you are not able to attend this workshop, a recording is available upon request. Please email Alexa White at saftacreativedirector@gmail.com.
