This selection, chosen by guest editor Sarah Clark, is from
Heirloom by Ashia Ajani, released by Write Bloody Publishing in 2023.
drapetomania
“a form of mania supposedly affecting slaves in the 19th century,
manifested by an uncontrollable impulse to wander or run away
from their white masters, preventable by regular whipping. The
disorder was first identified in a medical report that is often cited as
a fanciful case of psychologism” —Oxford English Dictionary
often, i dream of flight.
this makes me susceptible to any
gin-stinking wisdom that comes
my way—
better days are coming.
the drunkards on the corner blow
kisses masked by hiccupped
vengeance, eyes soot-dark
with visions of marronage.
“why you ain’t smiling?
you blessed my nigga” says the man
at the city bus stop.
instinctively, my wings unfurl.
perhaps it's just the smell of last night’s dinner
lingering on his coat,
good feed enticing wayward flock,
but there are always unnamed hungers who
draw us closer to truthsayers;
Lord, i been starving.
stuck in the oil slick, plumage clipped.
eager to find its destination happy,
a patient violence lives at the base of my spine.
desire stands guard against colonial teeth,
says, “run.”
i oblige,
exposing the geography of hurt
across these United States.
Ashia Ajani is a sunshower hailing from Denver, CO, (unceded Cheyenne, Ute, and Arapahoe land), now living in Oakland (unceded Ohlone land). A lecturer in the AfAm Department at UC Berkeley and a climate justice educator with Mycelium Youth Network, Ajani has received fellowships from Just Buffalo Literary Center, Tin House, The Watering Hole and others. Their words have appeared in Sierra, Atmos, World Literature Today, Frontier Poetry, & elsewhere. Ajani is co-poetry editor of the Hopper Literary Magazine and a Fall 2023 Poet in Residence at SF MoAD. Their debut poetry collection, Heirloom (Write Bloody Publishing), dropped April 2023.
Sarah Clark is a mad crip genderfuck two-spirit enrolled Nanticoke editor, writer, and cultural consultant. They are Editor-in-Chief and Poetry Editor at ANMLY, Editor-in-Chief at ALOCASIA: a journal of queer plant-based writing, Co-Editor of The Queer Movement Anthology (Seagull Books, 2024) and the Bettering American Poetry series, and a current Board member and Assistant Editor at Sundress Publications. They have edited folios for publications including the GLITTERBRAIN folio and a folio on Indigenous & Decolonial Futures & Futurisms at ANMLY. Sarah freelances, and has worked with a number of literary and arts publications and organizations, including the Best of the Net anthology, contemptorary, Curious Specimens, #PoetsResist at Glass Poetry, Apogee Journal, Blackbird, the Paris Review, and elsewhere.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Katie Manning, is from
God Themselves by Jae Nichelle, released by Simon & Schuster in 2023.
A Book Reminds Me I’ve Known Joy
I know love because I have turned the page
of this borrowed book to find a stain of maybe ketchup
or another bright food & I am holding something someone
would not even let go of to eat
I have laughed so hard at a joke I had to clutch a table
for balance I have smiled so hard I removed
my glasses to make room for my cheeks I have been so
overwhelmed with gratitude I pulled the car
over & cried at the wheel I do not have to guess
what it feels like to be this book, admired,
invested in dearly I have been so tenderly held
Tomorrow, will you remind me? I have been so
tenderly held
Jae Nichelle is the author of the poetry chapbook The Porch (As Sanctuary) from YesYes Books; the inaugural poetry winner of the John Lewis Writing Award from the Georgia Writers Association; and her poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2020, The Washington Square Review, The Offing Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, and elsewhere. Her spoken word poems have been featured by Write About Now, Speak Up Poetry Series, and Button Poetry.
Katie Manning is the author of Hereverent (Agape Editions), Tasty Other(winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), and six chapbook collections, including How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press) and 28,065 Nights (River Glass Books). Her poem “What to Expect” was featured on the Poetry Unbound podcast, and her poems have appeared in HAD, Poet Lore, SWWIM, Stirring, Thimble, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Katie is the founder and editor-in-chief of Whale Road Reviewand a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Katie Manning, is from
God Themselves by Jae Nichelle, released by Simon & Schuster in 2023.
Maybe: God
I.
the existence of bad words implies good ones. you believe saying yes is good even when you don’t want to. if there are bad girls who curse & spit & sit like men then there are good girls who don’t. you wonder if girls & words are ever just those things without dichotomy. you spend a lot of time closed—your legs & your lips—trying out goodness. god, like any parent, will be very nice to you until displeased, you learn. you say yes, you don’t have much space to take up anyway. it is before the iPhone & you only have 200 texts a month to use sparingly. you make each one count so as not to spark a back & forth you’d have to pay for. never I feel only yes okay sorry. all arguments cost you something. plus, you learn, anyone bigger than you can tell you what to do. a boy bigger than you says be a good girl, don’t say a word. you reassess—there are no good words. girls are good when silent & open at the command of someone bigger. god is good, see how god is silent? you should be smaller than everyone. parents, like any god, speak in parables. bad girls end up dead or on the streets. they do not mention who killed them, who closed their doors. your phone bill comes, rewards your lack of questions. your parents call. you are scared to pick up.
II.
a good listener is just a bad conversationalist. so my arguments with god are one-sided long paragraphs to which I see read at [day/ time]. I am proud to admit I speak enough to have my phone determine my frequently used words. so by now I can use predictive text to pray— Hello God Dammit I Am Still Trying To Talk About It With My Mother OK
Jae Nichelle is the author of the poetry chapbook The Porch (As Sanctuary) from YesYes Books; the inaugural poetry winner of the John Lewis Writing Award from the Georgia Writers Association; and her poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2020, The Washington Square Review, The Offing Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, and elsewhere. Her spoken word poems have been featured by Write About Now, Speak Up Poetry Series, and Button Poetry.
Katie Manning is the author of Hereverent (Agape Editions), Tasty Other(winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), and six chapbook collections, including How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press) and 28,065 Nights (River Glass Books). Her poem “What to Expect” was featured on the Poetry Unbound podcast, and her poems have appeared in HAD, Poet Lore, SWWIM, Stirring, Thimble, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Katie is the founder and editor-in-chief of Whale Road Reviewand a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University.
The Sundress Academy for the Arts is excited to host Holler Salon with a poetry reading and dinner at Firefly Farms. An extension of our award-winning Sundress Reading Series, Holler Salon aims to encourage conversation and collaboration between creative individuals in a variety of disciplines. The event, to be held from 6-9PM on Saturday, October 28th, will feature performances from poets Vincente Perez, Matthew E. Henry, and Erin Hoover, as well as a HOLLERween costume contest.
Vincente Perez is a poet and scholar working at the intersection of Poetry, Hip-Hop, and digital culture. He is a PhD Candidate in the Performance Studies program and a Poetry and the Senses Fellow (2021) at UC Berkeley. His chapbook, Other Stories to Tell Ourselves is out now (Newfound 2023). Their poems have appeared in Obsidian, Poet Lore, Honey Literary, Poetry.onl, Snarl Journal, Digging Through the Fat, & more!
Matthew E. Henry (MEH) is the author of six collections, including the Colored page (Sundress Publications, 2022) and The Third Renunciation (NYQ Books, 2023). He is editor-in-chief of The Weight Journal and an associate poetry editor at Pidgeonholes. The 2023 winner of the Solstice Literary Magazine Stephen Dunn Prize, MEH’s poetry appears in Massachusetts Review, Ninth Letter, Ploughshares, Shenandoah, and The Worcester Review among others. MEH is an educator who received his MFA yet continued to spend money he didn’t have completing an MA in theology and a PhD in education. You can find him at www.MEHPoeting.com writing about education, race, religion, and burning oppressive systems to the ground.
Erin Hoover is the author of Barnburner (Elixir, 2018) and No Spare People (Black Lawrence, 2023). She is an assistant professor of English at Tennessee Tech University and a single parent living in rural Tennessee, where she curates and hosts the monthly, in-person reading series, Sawmill Poetry, and produces the “Not Abandon, but Abide” interview series for the Southern Review of Books. The Holler Salon is the first appearance in Hoover’s No Spare People Tour, in which she’ll read in Nashville, Louisville, New York, Philadelphia, Birmingham, New Orleans, and more. She’s thrilled to return to Firefly Farms after being in residency there this past June.
Firefly Farms is a 45-acre farm that focuses on subsistence farming and raising small livestock located at 195 Tobby Hollow Ln, Knoxville, TN. While dinner is provided, attendees are invited to BYOB. Please also note that parking is limited, so we encourage carpooling.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Katie Manning, is from
God Themselves by Jae Nichelle, released by Simon & Schuster in 2023.
Sci-Fi with Black Lead
The movies are wrong. Time
is circular, meaning the future
is just us older in the past.
We are naked, we don’t understand
science—we never did—
& I love you.
We’ve seen all of our terrors
before, so we rebuke excess.
This is enough—
gather sticks, set fires, be
together. Our families
have finally met.
We are still here. Your strides
slow and long, you bring everyone
apples to share. Where are the battles?
Behind us. Where we don’t look.
Where are the men? We don’t need
answers, but the ocean
is clear, gas-flame blue. So we ask.
Have we ever seen ourselves?
Look—
you, black woman,
still here, me, black
woman, still here.
How did we used to live? Always
on our toes & ready. One might think
the hunted would seek revenge.
We did. We rebuilt our homes & our feet.
Where are the heroes? We are still here,
only no one needs to be saved.
Jae Nichelle is the author of the poetry chapbook The Porch (As Sanctuary) from YesYes Books; the inaugural poetry winner of the John Lewis Writing Award from the Georgia Writers Association; and her poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2020, The Washington Square Review, The Offing Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, and elsewhere. Her spoken word poems have been featured by Write About Now, Speak Up Poetry Series, and Button Poetry.
Katie Manning is the author of Hereverent (Agape Editions), Tasty Other(winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), and six chapbook collections, including How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press) and 28,065 Nights (River Glass Books). Her poem “What to Expect” was featured on the Poetry Unbound podcast, and her poems have appeared in HAD, Poet Lore, SWWIM, Stirring, Thimble, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Katie is the founder and editor-in-chief of Whale Road Reviewand a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Katie Manning, is from
God Themselves by Jae Nichelle, released by Simon & Schuster in 2023.
Golden Shovel
after Lucille Clifton’s “why some people be mad at me sometimes”
when I die they will say I tempted the gun. they
will look at my body, bloodied, & ask
the gun why I deserved it. seductress me,
flesh hot & begging to
be pierced. the gun, I must remember
is just a gun. strong, but
easily convinced. when I resurrect, they
will say witch. say I must want
the attention of more guns. they’ll come for me,
use my resilience to
justify excessive force. the guns, I must remember,
are scared of me. I am their
warm-bodied antithesis in their memories.
though in mine, I was simply born &
blamed for it. it’s my fault. I
know they will eventually say I did it, keep
stressing how tired I was, how the on-
ly witnesses are remembering
wrong. the gun, they’ll say, was always mine.
Jae Nichelle is the author of the poetry chapbook The Porch (As Sanctuary) from YesYes Books; the inaugural poetry winner of the John Lewis Writing Award from the Georgia Writers Association; and her poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2020, The Washington Square Review, The Offing Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, and elsewhere. Her spoken word poems have been featured by Write About Now, Speak Up Poetry Series, and Button Poetry.
Katie Manning is the author of Hereverent (Agape Editions), Tasty Other(winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), and six chapbook collections, including How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press) and 28,065 Nights (River Glass Books). Her poem “What to Expect” was featured on the Poetry Unbound podcast, and her poems have appeared in HAD, Poet Lore, SWWIM, Stirring, Thimble, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Katie is the founder and editor-in-chief of Whale Road Reviewand a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University.
This selection, chosen by guest editor Katie Manning, is from
God Themselves by Jae Nichelle, released by Simon & Schuster in 2023.
Black Girl Catholic
I like dipping my hands in the metal bowls of water & making everything I touch holy. Holy forehead, holy chest, holy lips. I am too old to sleep through sermon, too young to listen. Holy pew. Holy basket for offering. My grandmother passes soft mints to busy our mouths. Not busy enough. Holy sweet. She doesn’t listen to me, but she will to the man commanding standkneel. We accept his crunchy bread. Holy body. We eat God. We eat, yet I hunger for softer things. My auntie won’t let me see the Bible on her phone. She knows I play games instead. I dip my hand again as we leave. Holy me. Flick some on my brother. Holy us.
Jae Nichelle is the author of the poetry chapbook The Porch (As Sanctuary) from YesYes Books; the inaugural poetry winner of the John Lewis Writing Award from the Georgia Writers Association; and her poetry has appeared in Best New Poets 2020, The Washington Square Review, The Offing Magazine, Muzzle Magazine, and elsewhere. Her spoken word poems have been featured by Write About Now, Speak Up Poetry Series, and Button Poetry.
Katie Manning is the author of Hereverent (Agape Editions), Tasty Other(winner of the Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award), and six chapbook collections, including How to Play (Louisiana Literature Press) and 28,065 Nights (River Glass Books). Her poem “What to Expect” was featured on the Poetry Unbound podcast, and her poems have appeared in HAD, Poet Lore, SWWIM, Stirring, Thimble, Verse Daily, and many other venues. Katie is the founder and editor-in-chief of Whale Road Reviewand a professor of writing at Point Loma Nazarene University.
