Hello! My name is Hiba Syed, and as one of the new editorial interns, I can’t wait to work with the amazing team at Sundress Publications. I graduated just last year with a BA in English from Maryville University near St. Louis, where I am still based. Though my field is a highly unusual choice in my cultural community, I chose it because I believe books have been my life’s most constant passion for a reason.
Coming from a big family of people who don’t read more than they have to, I make up for it by reading enough for all of us combined. Some people stress-eat, or stress-clean, while I am prone to stress-read. Of all the problems my first-generation immigrant, engineer parents anticipated when they had their first child, having to listen to elementary school teachers explain that their daughter’s library book had to be confiscated mid-lesson was not one of them. My ability to focus has improved greatly since then, but even now, I always have an e-book or a physical novel within arm’s reach. So naturally, I couldn’t picture myself happily working with anything other than the written word.
In terms of reading tastes, my first love was definitely fantasy, but nowadays I gravitate towards translated literature, classics, and poetry. I am also always scoping out works, new and old, English and translated, by Muslim and South Asian authors. Some of my favorite titles are The Laughter by Sonora Jha, The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff, and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.
In my free time, aside from reading, I hoard recipes, try some of those recipes, and go on long walks until my audiobooks run out. My professional journey is only just kicking off, but I’m excited to see where this opportunity will take me. Thank you for reading!
Hiba Syed is a Pakistani-American writer and reviewer with an appreciation for all genres. Having recently graduated with a BA in English, she fills her time traveling, experimenting in the kitchen, and reading anything she can get her hands on. Currently she resides in St. Louis, Missouri.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts (SAFTA) is thrilled to announce its 2024 Poetry Retreat, which runs from June 1-2, 2024. For the first time ever, this event will be entirely virtual held via Zoom. All SAFTA retreats focus on generative writing, and this year’s retreat will also include the following craft talk sessions: “Let’s Talk About Prose Poems” and “Third Space Grief: The (Written) Performance of Intersectional Mourning.” The event will be open to poets of all backgrounds and experience levels and provide an opportunity to work with many talented authors and poets from around the country, including workshop leaders Amorak Huey, Sarah A. Chavez, and keynote speaker Barbara Fant.
Amorak Huey is author of four books of poems including Dad Jokes from Late in the Patriarchy (Sundress Publications, 2021). Co-founder with Han VanderHart of River River Books, Huey teaches at Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He also is co-author with W. Todd Kaneko of the textbook Poetry: A Writer’s Guide and Anthology (Bloomsbury, 2024) and Slash/Slash (2021), winner of the Diode Editions Chapbook Prize. Huey is a recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, and his poems have appeared in The Best American Poetry, American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-A-Day series, and many other print and online journals.
Sarah A. Chavez, a California mestiza living in the PNW, is the author of the poetry collections, Hands That Break & Scar(Sundress Publications), All Day, Talking (dancing girl press), like everything else we loved, (Porkbelly Press) and Halfbreed Helene Navigates the Whole (Ravenna Press’ Triple Series). Recent writing projects have received a 2019-2020 Tacoma Artists Initiative Award, as well as residencies at Dorland Mountain Arts Colony, the Macondo Writers Workshop, and The Writer’s Colony at Dairy Hollow. Her new project, In the Face of Mourning was awarded a 2023 Scholarship & Research grant from the University of Washington Tacoma’s (UWT) School for Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Chavez teaches creative writing and Latinx/Chicanx-focused courses and serves as the poetry coordinator for Best of the Net Anthology.
Barbara Fant has been writing and performing for over 15 years. She competed in 9 National Poetry Slam competitions, and she is a World Poetry Slam finalist. She is the author of two poetry collections, Paint, Inside Out (2010) and Mouths of Garden (2022). Her work has been featured in the Academy of American Poets, Electric Literature, McNeese Review, The Ohio State University Press, Button Poetry, and Def Poetry Jam, amongst others. She has received residencies in Havana, Cuba and Senegal, West Africa. For over 12 years, she had led healing informed poetry workshops for both youth and adults who are incarcerated, those in community, adults in recovery, and survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence. She is certified as a Healing Centered Engagement specialist and holds both an MFA in Poetry and a Master of Theology. She is the founder of the Black Women Rise Poetry Collective and co-founder of The Senghor Project, West African International Artist Residency, and co-founder of We THRIVE Healing and Arts Collective.
Welcome back to Lyric Essentials, where we invite authors to share the work of their favorite poets. This month, Erika Walsh joins us to discuss the work of Chelsey Minnis, and the importance of taking risks in poetry, whether it be through form or humor, and how bending expectations in writing can be freeing. As always, we hope you enjoy as much as we did.
Ryleigh Wann: When was the first time you read Chelsey Minnis? Why did her work stand out to you then?
Erika Walsh: It was initially a bit disturbing to me that I couldn’t remember the exact moment I encountered Chelsey Minnis for the first time, but then it felt kind of fun and cool, as though she were part of my life all along; like there was never a time before her. I know for sure that the first book I read by her was Bad Bad, and that the first singular poem I read online by her was “Clown,” but I can’t recall how I came to find her, or which came first.
I remember being tickled by the wild aesthetics of Bad Bad, with its pink and white striped cover, a seemingly random drawing of a two-headed fawn at the center of the book, and “bad” reviews highlighted on its back cover, such as “Her poems take some getting used to” and “Many won’t find her…acceptable at all…” These poems took real risks, such as covering multiple pages nearly entirely with ellipses. I was especially struck by Chelsey’s “Anti Vitae” which made me laugh out loud, as it listed her “failures” as a poet, such as “Mispronounce ‘Kant’,” “Told poems ‘lack agency.’ Have to ask what ‘agency’ means,” and “Told that poetry is ‘loose’ by future poet laureate.” It was so refreshing to read poems by someone who is clearly an artist and a poet, but not in a way that adheres to any arbitrary expectations of the literary world as an institution.
RW: How has her writing inspired your own?
EW: I love how genuinely funny Chelsey’s poems are. I began writing poetry thinking there was a “right” way to write a poem, and my poems came out feeling stifled and forced as I tried to bend them into shapes I thought may result in others taking me more “seriously” as a poet. Now that I’m in my MFA, I think I maybe for the first time feel like I truly have the space and support to write poems that are less “safe.” I feel more free to not only write poems that are “weird” or “experimental” (but still aesthetically pleasing), but also to write poems that are absurd and maybe even a little bit crude, maybe a little bit ugly. Chelsey’s writing also shows me that there are not only many ways to write a poem, but also many ways to be a poet, and that validation from other poets or from literary institutions can only take you so far. Writing the poems you want to write solely because you want to write them is the real pleasure.
RW: Why did you choose to read these poems specifically?
EW: “A Speech About the Moon” (from Zirconia) puts me into a trance state every time I read it. It initially feels almost like a punch line, to have the poem start with one line about the moon before moving on to the birds and the fish and the sea, which quickly become the real adhering images of the poem. Then you begin to realize this poem is haunted. Whatever is haunting you rises to the surface as you read it, but in a surprisingly gentle way; gentler than you could have imagined. This poem gives you the space and permission to settle into the feeling; to not flinch away from your fear. I consider “Clown” (from Bad Bad) to be a classic. As I mentioned before, I believe it’s the first poem I ever read online by Minnis. This poem makes me laugh out loud, especially the last few lines: “You can’t imagine how jolly/ everything is. And the fright wigs… I don’t want to be a clown but I’m/ sure to be one. My mother was a clown.” Every time I read these lines, I know with absolute certainty that they must be true; that there is something clown-like in me, and in my ancestral lineage, and perhaps in every person who comes across this poem. Somehow, we’re all connected by both the fact that we are clowns, and the fact that we don’t want to be them. “Men Cry Because of the Heat” is another poem from Bad Bad that just makes me laugh. It really embodies the feeling of absurdity in Chelsey’s poems. The droll delivery of the speaker adds to this feeling. This poem also is in ways a parallel to “A Speech About the Moon,” with its attention to similar images, such as crying, ice, and birds. But unlike the speaker in “A Speech About the Moon,” the men in this poem aren’t paying attention; “If a bird lands on their shoulder….they don’t even think about it…they can’t realize anything…about birds.” The speaker in “A Speech About the Moon,” is alone with her thoughts, whereas the men in this poem have help (“You have to cut their shirts into half shirts….”). The sadness in this poem does not, after all, arise from the same place, or from an “enchanted misery.” It is only the heat.
RW: What have you been up to lately (life, work, anything!)? Got any news to share?
EW: I was recently named Poetry Editor of Black Warrior Review, the literary journal affiliated with my MFA at the University of Alabama, and will begin this position in January 2024. I’m very excited about this, especially since this is a journal I’ve been reading and following for many years! The 9th issue of A Velvet Giant, an online literary journal which I also edit and co-founded, also just came out last month. In terms of my own writing, my poem “My Baby” was recently published in Pigeon Pages. I have two poems coming out in VIBEin early 2024 (and the folio is available for preorder right now!) I’ve been writing lots of fairytale inspired poems lately, and have been writing ecopoetry as well and thinking about the connection between the violences humans commit against our planet and against each other. In terms of more life-related news, I recently moved into a new apartment with my partner. I’m planning a puppet show with one of my best friends, and starting to get back into studying tarot. I’m thinking about the future in a way that feels mostly exciting.
Chelsey Minnis studied creative writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is the author of several collections of poetry including Zirconia (2001), which won the Alberta Prize; Bad Bad (2007); and Poemland (2009). She lives in Boulder.
Erika Walsh is an MFA candidate in Poetry at the University of Alabama, poetry editor of BlackWarrior Review, and co-founding editor of A Velvet Giant. Erika’s creative writing has been featured in Hotel Amerika, Booth, Pigeon Pages, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Peach Mag, and elsewhere. She has been awarded residencies from Sundress Academy of the Arts and Art Farm Nebraska, as well as a fellowship from Brooklyn Poets.
Ryleigh Wann (she/her) hails from Michigan and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She earned an MFA from UNC Wilmington where she taught poetry and served as the comics editor for Ecotone. Her writing can be found in The McNeese Review, Longleaf Review, The Shore, and elsewhere. You can visit her website at ryleighwann.com
This selection, chosen by guest editor Kirsten Kowalewski, is from Something Kindredby Nicole Tallman (Southern Collective Experience 2022).
On The Last Moments Leading Up To Your Death
(excerpt)
It’s the only time I see Dad cry in 40 years. He says you’ll be gone in three days. I ask why he didn’t tell me sooner. He says he didn’t know it would happen so fast. There were signs we didn’t see, but you had said you’d let me know when to come home. You did, and I don’t blame you. You couldn’t know what you didn’t want to know. You just kept pretending, even from the Hospice bed at home. How could I be surprised that you would pretend that everything was fine? Your entire life was pretending, making everyone believe that everything was fine.
Nicole Tallman is the author of three collections: Something Kindred, Poems for the People, and FERSACE. She serves as Miami’s official Poetry Ambassador, Editor of Redacted Books, and Poetry Editor for South Florida Poetry Journal and The Blue Mountain Review. Find her on social media @natallman and at nicoletallman.com.
Kirsten Kowalewski is the editor for online horror fiction review resource Monster Librarian. She has an MLS and a specialist certificate in school library media from Indiana University, has worked as a children’s librarian and elementary school media specialist, and is a lifelong reader.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from How to Playby Katie Manning (Louisiana Literature Press 2022).
When We Finish Playing Cootie
He pulls my bug’s blue head off of its red body and laughs until his breath runs out. I flash to him laughing and knocking me to the kitchen tile in a hug that tears the tissue in my knee. The sudden smash of his skull on my nose when I lean in for a kiss. The red trails cut by fingernails across my face, white scars across over-stretched skin. I put this head and body back together and laugh when my son tears it apart again.
Katie Manning is the founding editor of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. Winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award for Tasty Other, she’s the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Hereverent (Agape Editions, 2023) and How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press, 2022). Her writing has been featured on Poetry Unbound, Tangle News, Verse Daily, and many other venues.
Joey Gould, who is 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), while their recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Meow Meow Pow Pow, Miniskirt Magazine, & Persephone’s Fruit. They also serve as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present Poetry Xfit hosted by Alexa White. This generative workshop event will take place on Sunday, April 21st 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!
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 The 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.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to present “And yet … There’s still Joy: Joy as an Act of Resistance in Poetry,” a workshop led by Barbara Fant on April 10th, 2024, from 6:00-7:30PM ET. This event will be held over Zoom. Participants can access the event at tiny.utk.edu/sundress (password: safta).
Throughout this workshop, participants will learn how other poets over time have experienced and explored joy in their writing. We will read and listen to poems and discuss how joy shows up in poetry, from the small joys in everyday life to healing through trauma. We will specifically explore the work of Toi Derricotte, her usage of “joy as an act of resistance,” and how we can use our writing to explore and experience more deeply the small moments of joy in our daily lives.
We will also explore how to lean into writing when healing through pain, trauma, and grief, and ultimately, finding joy in the midst of it all. Participants will experience the poetry of contemporary poets, receive writing prompts, be offered time and space to write, and then receive the invitation to share with others.
Barbara Fant is the author of two poetry collections, Paint, Inside Out (2010) and Mouths of Garden (2022). Her work has been featured in the Academy of American Poets, Electric Literature, McNeese Review, The Ohio State University Press, Button Poetry, and Def Poetry Jam, amongst others. She has received residencies in Havana, Cuba and Senegal, West Africa. She has competed in nine National Poetry Slams and placed 8th out of 96 poets in the 2017 Women of the World Poetry Slam. She is a certified Healing Centered Engagement specialist and holds an MFA in Poetry and a Master of Theology.
While there is no fee to participate in this workshop, those who are able and appreciate may make donations directly to Barbara Fant via Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App. Her Venmo is @Barbara-Fant-1, PayPal is barbfant127@gmail.com, and CashApp is $Bloom127.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is pleased to announce the guests for the April installment of our reading series, poets Lexi McDonald and Chrissy Stegman. Join us on Thursday, April 18th 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 7 PM sharp and is limited to 10-12 readers.
Lexi McDonald (they/she) is a queer poet from Central Pennsylvania who writes to make peace with their memories and explore the threads that connect past to present. She is an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and serves as the Assistant Poetry Editor for UT’s literary journal, Grist. Lexi’s work appears in The FruitSlice, RiverCraft, The Sanctuary, and Essay Lit magazines.
Chrissy Stegman is a poet/writer from Baltimore, Maryland. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in: Rejection Letters, Gone Lawn, Gargoyle Magazine, Anti-Heroin Chic, Poverty House, Stone Circle Review, Fictive Dream, The Voidspace, 5 Minutes, and BULL. She is a 2023 BOTN nominee.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from How to Playby Katie Manning (Louisiana Literature Press 2022).
content warning for cancer
Eldritch Horror
We hit the card that makes us lose half of everything: half of our items, spells, & clue tokens tossed into the box. I watch you decide which spell to lose. Your forehead wrinkles remind me of our newborn boys— the lines easier to see now that you’ve lost all of your hair. It’s been two months since you lost half of your testicles and half of your tumors. It’s been seven weeks of chemicals in your blood. You roll the dice to cast the spell you chose to keep. You only need one success.
Katie Manning is the founding editor of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. Winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award for Tasty Other, she’s the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Hereverent (Agape Editions, 2023) and How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press, 2022). Her writing has been featured on Poetry Unbound, Tangle News, Verse Daily, and many other venues.
Joey Gould, who is 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), while their recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Meow Meow Pow Pow, Miniskirt Magazine, & Persephone’s Fruit. They also serve as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Joey Gould, is from How to Playby Katie Manning (Louisiana Literature Press 2022).
Scattergories: A Regret
for Rick & Chris
On the boat between Ireland and Scotland, all I could think about was crotchless panties. The category was articles of clothing. The letter was C. Coat. Cardigan. Cap. Clogs. Corduroys. None of these came to me. Crotchless panties. I was sitting beside my professor, an older man who looked just like the bust of Mark Twain in his office. I could not write crotchless panties. I looked across to my friends to gain inspiration from their clothing—t-shirts, jeans, sneakers. They were no help. Crotchless panties. Crotchless panties. My pen hovered over the paper, still. The last bit of sand fell. Getting off the boat, I told a friend about getting stuck on crotchless panties. He thought this was so funny that he whispered it to me over and over for the next two weeks of our trip: walking into my first real castle crotchless panties, buying a scarf on the Royal mile crotchless panties, trying vegetarian haggis crotchless panties, finding our professor asleep in a museum crotchless panties, eating curry in Oxford crotchless panties, tasting Earl Grey for the first time crotchless panties, gasping at the sight of Big Ben crotchless panties, standing beside C.S. Lewis’s grave crotchless panties. The words crotchless panties haunted me, a mantra I couldn’t control. Back in America, I read my professor’s poem that was shaped like a breast on the page. He was edgier than I thought. To this day, I regret not using the words that came to me when I needed them.
Katie Manning is the founding editor of Whale Road Review and a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University. Winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award for Tasty Other, she’s the author of eight poetry collections, most recently Hereverent (Agape Editions, 2023) and How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press, 2022). Her writing has been featured on Poetry Unbound, Tangle News, Verse Daily, and many other venues.
Joey Gould, who is 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), while their recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Meow Meow Pow Pow, Miniskirt Magazine, & Persephone’s Fruit. They also serve as Poetry Editor for Drunk Monkeys.
