Tag: SD

Sundress Reads: Review of Toothache in the Bone

Sundress Reads
A cover of a book, showing a hand-drawn illustration of the left half of a hip bone in the center. The background is beige like parchment paper, and the skeleton is drawn with pencil shading. There is a rectangular border around the hip bone drawing. The title, "Toothache in the Bone," is written in red in the bottom-right corner. The author's name, Colleen S. Harris, is written beneath.

Toothache in the Bone (boats against the current, 2025) by Colleen S. Harris is a raw exploration of death, grief, trauma, and resilience. This poetry collection examines the body and its limitations under strain: diagnoses of bone damage and infertility; the death of loved ones; a marriage; and constant hospital visits and struggles with body image. Harris’s poems reflect on the human condition and the complexities of life with chronic illness, revealing physical and emotional scars with vulnerability that leaves an ache in the soul.

Throughout the collection, medical imagery is a recurring motif. Harris uses these vivid depictions to convey the physical experience of illness and show how it affects everyday life and one’s sense of self. Each poem is infused with visual references to needle jabs, broken bones, and allusions to medical terminology, such as macrophages and CRP (C-reactive protein) test numbers. These depictions of physical suffering linger with the reader, showing the deep influence of chronic illness on the speaker’s perception of everyday life.

In “Primum Non Nocere (First, Do No Harm)”, Harris writes: “First you must be patient, a patient / patient, who understands three months / of waiting for the chance to supplicate / to the physician could be worse… // When the day / comes, remember not to use the upper numbers of the pain scale, no nurse / believes anything above an eight” (23). These lines illustrate the speaker’s frustration with a healthcare system that does not adequately serve its patients. The endless cycle of waiting for appointments, enduring blood tests, and interacting with doctors who dismiss her symptoms renders the speaker drained. Her lack of agency in her medical treatment and constant pain creates a sense of helplessness towards her body: “Pain is a marriage, / a commitment, ‘til death do us part” (33). The speaker ultimately accepts that this senseless suffering will always be part of her life. Through this candid depiction of the intense psychological toll of illness, Harris guides us to understand the feeling of being trapped in a body that constantly betrays you. 

A central theme of Toothache in the Bone is coping with loss, grief, and the myriad complex emotions they evoke. Harris engages with loss in its many forms: the loss of health, the loss of reproductive possibility, and the loss of people. In “Rituals of Grief,” Harris grapples with reproductive loss through parallels with the mourning behaviors of elephants and crows. She writes, “Animals know the importance / of company, how a critical mass / of community can sustain grief // at a bearable level” (26). Later, she recounts the experience of losing a pregnancy, writing: “No animal, alone, I am buried / within these walls… // no crowd to wing with me, to step / in solidarity toward your body… // to prove that… I remain beyond your remains (27).

In contrast to the sense of community and shared grief found within elephant and crow groups, Harris highlights the alienation and loneliness that surround sudden loss among humans, particularly the experience of miscarriage. The societal stigma around miscarriage often forces women to grieve their miscarriage privately, internalizing their loss as a personal failure: What is wrong with my body? Why isn’t it working as it should? Without any community support to help her carry the weight of this pain, the speaker falls into a deep depression. Speaking openly about this issue is crucial to normalizing discussion around miscarriage and building community among women and individuals facing similar challenges. 

The thing I find most compelling about this collection is its unapologetic discussion of death and the nuances of the grieving process. Harris artfully describes the range of emotions that arise when navigating loss. In “On Letting Go of the Dying,” the speaker mourns both the death of her dog and her dying marriage. On witnessing the last moments of a beloved pet, Harris writes: “My mother / made me see his ribs pushing their way rudely through / his skin / I was not brave / when I carried him for the last / time… // Five / years passed before I could reach into the too small box to spoon // his ashes into a pendant…” (23). Through the use of visceral imagery, Harris illustrates the speaker’s confrontation with death, its brutality on the body, and its permanence. Death is often perceived as a biological, inevitable reality of life. Harris voices the fear and heartbreak of witnessing a loved one’s final days. It is a type of sorrow that never truly leaves you.

The latter half of the poem shifts in tone as Harris redirects the reader’s attention to the unhappy marriage. Harris describes it as a “skeletal, / gasping thing,” writing, “I needed // no memento, did not want to drown in the ashes. I wore my / good red dancing shoes instead” (24). Like shedding layers of old skin, the speaker is relieved to cast off her dying marriage and start life anew. Harris uses this juxtaposition to emphasize that accepting loss is not always negative; at times, it is a necessary process for growth and survival.

I have never read a poetry collection as devastating as Toothache in the Bone. I found myself moved by its honest discussions of illness, death, and body image, particularly in “Primum Non Nocere,” “Nel Mezzo Del Cammin di Nostra Vita,” and “I Dreamt I Was Unblemished.” Harris’s unflinching account of coming to terms with illness and loss reverberated deep in my bones, staying with me long after I finished reading. Her ability to articulate difficult human emotions, such as self-hate and sorrow, allows the collection to resonate with readers both with and without chronic conditions. In this collection, Colleen S. Harris masterfully gives voice to the hidden pain that our bodies hold.

A South Asian woman smiling and sitting on a green couch. She has black hair, half lying over her right shoulder and half down her back, and is wearing a wine-red turtleneck. Behind her are two closed window curtains, one light blue and floral print, and the other solid teal.

Tara Rahman (she/her) is a Sundress editorial intern with a BA in English Language and Literature from Smith College and an MSc in Global Development from SOAS, University of London. She is also a recent graduate of the Columbia Publishing Course in Oxford, UK. With a strong interest in culture, identity, and global history, her personal writing often focuses on intersectionality and the untold stories and experiences of marginalized communities.

An Interview with Sarah Clark and Ashely Adams, Editors of ALOCASIA: 99 queer writers on plants and nature

Following the release of ALOCASIA’s new poetry anthology, 99 queer writers on plants and nature, editors Sarah Clark and Ashely Adams spoke with Sundress editorial intern Tara Rahman. Here, they discussed the poetics of botanical terminology, the resilience of queer plant and human communities in surviving and thriving in harsh environments, and the important work of protecting and cultivating Indigenous identities, knowledge, and wildlife in the face of oppressive and exclusionary systems. Together, they imagine new possibilities of being with the natural world—of burning away the dry brush and clearing the way for new bonds to grow.

Tara Rahman: Why did you choose the plant name, ALOCASIA, as the title for this anthology?

Sarah Clark and Ashely Adams: The title of the anthology is derived from the magazine’s name ALOCASIA. Now, where did the magazine’s name come from? It’s the name of a plant genus found in the Aroid family (the family many common house plants are part of). They have an interesting growth habit where they spring up from tubers or rhizomes as bunches of stalks with these shield-like leaves.

They have also been endlessly manipulated for visual aesthetic. I’m not sure if there was a deeper meaning at the time than it was a good sounding name, and we were very much into houseplants. Funny enough, Sarah doesn’t even own any alocasias due to their tendency to pick up pests. (Ashely did, and they did indeed end up with mealy bugs every time).

TR: Can you speak to the usage of scientific or botanical names of plants in these poems?

SC and AA: While we can’t speak for the authors, our feeling is that plant names carry immense meaning. There is a poetry, a literacy, in botanical terminology. There’s a delight in learning and applying terms like petiole, umbral, or extrafloral nectaries. Someone could write a whole book on the implications of scientific names (a “universal” name derived from a long dead language) or how common names twist and turn over time.

For example: the false Solomon’s seal is a common perennial found across North America. Just looking at the name, we can infer that there is some sort of “true” Solomon’s seal and that some characteristic of it reminded people of Solomon’s seal. Furthermore, we can guess that this is a name that came after colonization. We can ask all sorts of questions from there. What were the Indigenous names for the plant? What about this humble plant inspired settlers to invoke religious iconography? What makes a thing the “false” version of another? We’ve generated so many things we could explore within poetry with just one plant.

TR: Gardens, succulents (e.g., saguaros), and other houseplants are recurring images throughout the anthology. What is their significance? How do they reflect the lived experiences of queer individuals?

SC and AA: We build so many connections to the plants we cultivate. As writers, we’re drawn to interrogate the connections we make, especially the ones closest to us. Beyond the “write what you know” aspect, there’s tension at the heart of cultivation. Change must happen both in the plant and the caretaker for the relationship to work, just as change must happen to ensure the survival (and hopefully more) of a queer person in often hostile environments. M.P. Rosalia’s poem, “sapling, taken from the northern pacific coast, kept in a jar” is a great illustration of this. The sapling, despite being cared for by the speaker of the poem, cannot survive within the confines of the jar. It is a being meant for sun and immense space.

TR: Many poems in the anthology consider ideas of queer sensuality, such as “Dry Love” and “looking for a soft place to land.” How does the image of nature connect to or embody queer desire?

SC and AA: Plants, from a human perspective, are very strange organisms. They communicate in chemical networks hidden to the naked eye. They create their own energy from water and sunlight. They reproduce through insect intermediaries, the wind, water, even from shards of themselves. They can be male, female, both, or neither. Everything we adore and survive on comes from the sexual peculiarities of plants. The question isn’t so much how does a plant embody queer desire but how it could be anything but?

TR: In “Plancestors,” Rebecca Kinkade-Black writes, “‘We are all connected’ / is not just some trite phrase / It is remembrance / that we are all unified by the molecules that make us.” Tell me about the importance of building community with our queer planty relatives, and the importance of recognizing the diverse “systems of connection” that make up our existence.

SC and AA: We want to give an answer beyond the practical reasons (like “need food”). Society pressures queer people to act a certain way, to be normal, be natural. However, when you study plants, you find that what thrives in nature goes beyond anything that humans can imagine. Anyone who really opens themselves to learning the realities of biology opens themselves to the possibility of being. As Kinkada-Black illustrated, our furthest relatives are our relatives and we can draw on their ways of survival to benefit our own.

TR: Ashely: Tell me more about your choice of language, syntax, and form in “Prescribed Burn,” such as the use of dialogue and definitions.

AA: I’m a sucker for a braided essay. I love putting disparate elements together and letting a reader build connections. I like to think it creates personal narratives in less expected ways. I also confess I kind of hate writing in the “I” voice in my nonfiction. This is definitely one of my more “personal” personal narratives.

I also love using the language from the natural sciences. My first degree was in fisheries and wildlife. I am always excited when I can bring together that life into my writing. There’s always that tension when you sit the scientific next to more lyrical writing. I feel that tension gives you a better appreciation for each type of writing. I certainly didn’t come to appreciate everything I learned in my undergrad until I switched to creative writing pursuing my advanced degrees.

Finally, I think all these tensions can allow us to look at discourses we’re saturated with (in this case, gender-based violence and discrimination) with a sense of surprise and curiosity. It pushes a reader to think of the quiet ways oppression shapes the way we look and approach the world. A hike in the Florida scrub is laden with risk and privilege and burden.

TR: In “Mother of Thousands,” Nikki Wallschlaeger writes, “…I ask you to take the batteries out of the clanging wall clock before I go to sleep to prevent the supremacist art of domestication from permeating my dreams.” How does capitalist exploitation and domination over the natural world intersect with systemic inequality and the marginalization of certain communities?

SC and AA: This is the flip side of your question on connections. To maintain hierarchies, there has to be a breaking of bonds–not just between people, but the land they occupy as well.

When you break these bonds, you get this cascading system of exclusion and oppression. I think Marcy Rae Henry demonstrates this well in the poem “Los saguaros are being destroyed”. Boundaries are drawn on fluid landscapes for nation-states to claim. The claim leads to oppression of the beings who dare to occupy the space in contradiction of the nation-state’s will, no matter how long they were there before the powers that be: “…saguros can live two centuries / As long as this country has been / Longer than this f r o n t e r a”.

The poet correctly states that the removal of the saguaro is done as a means to remove people. And these ideas of worth and humanity are fluid, ever shifting depending on what those at the top of the hierarchy deem as valuable. One area of wilderness is a wasted economic opportunity while another is a paradise worthy of utmost preservation. The removal of saguaro is a serious crime unless it’s done in service of a border wall.

TR: Many of these poems juxtapose imagery of the natural world with capitalist, corporate landscapes, such as in “i want clean water dammit,” “the office // the after,” and “An Anti-Pastoral.” How can we reconcile this “simultaneously / medicinal & poisonous” (from “An-Anti Pastoral”) relationship between humanity and the environment that surrounds us? How can we reimagine our relationship with the natural world?

SC and AA: Despite the aims of capitalism and bigotry, humans inherently crave connection. It’s arguably the reason the species has been so successful. It’s our instinct to bond with other beings, even non-human ones. It’s one of the deeply charming things about humans. We’ll look at a plant and declare it our friend and confidant, 1.5 billion years of evolutionary separation be damned. Obviously, human development imperils many organisms, but we hope the writers of this anthology show ways we might build partnership with the natural world, even as we become more urbanized. A spider fern in an apartment window can be a challenge to the corporate world–an existence based not on monetary value, but its beauty and tenacity and plain existence.

TR: In “Prescribed Burn,” the speaker states, “Still, I bend down…and think a better future is possible. One where we listen to those who have suffered. One where we let the fires burn.” How can we imagine a future that is more sustainable for marginalized communities, both human and plant? What kinds of burnings would need to take place?

SC and AA: When you suppress fires in fire-dependent ecosystems, dead vegetation builds up into dangerous fuel loads. These fuel loads are one of the reasons we are now experiencing some of the most devastating wildfires in modern history. Much like our land, our communities are being buried in these fuel loads, ready to ignite into radicalization and stochastic violence. To survive, we must find ways to remove this dead weight, these dry ideas and systems, and allow something new and healthy to grow in its place.

TR: Which poem in this anthology resonate most with you and why?

AA: One of the pieces I was drawn to was arushi (aera) rege’s poem “nuclear winter, burning planet”. I’m a sucker for an apocalyptic vibe and the challenge that comes in imagining and even loving a life in ruin.

SC: They’re all my babies (or should I say propagations)! It’s so hard to choose just one, but…

The use of National Park Service information cards as a format to explore trans identity and desire and anxieties. The metaphor of a trans person’s life as a nurse log, a tree that sustains the life of other young trees and plants, is really affecting.

The expectations, realities, and hope in Talicha J.’s “another year sprouts” connect with me profoundly. I’ve gotten so many ming aralias, and tell myself this time it’ll be different, this time I’ll be different.

Sreeja Naskar’s three poems “i unsaint myself in front of the mirror,” “after they left, the garden wouldn’t bloom / but the weeds did,” and “she left in autumn and everything I’ve planted since has grown teeth” that are an emotional journey linking the botanical world with profoundly queer love and equally profound loss are perennial favorites.

With the world being what it is, who doesn’t want to just smoke some oui’d with the ancestors surrounded and held by green space? June Beck’s “A text message to a New York Navajo” totally gets it.

Anangookwe Wolf’s “i want clean water god dammit” begins with a remembrance interrupted by the insistence of colonialism, industrialism, capitalist expansion and extraction.

It weaves through the centuries of loss of indigenous identity and wildlife, our struggles and strides to protect and cultivate it, and then culminates in the ferocious, but reasonable demand “i don’t want concrete                                I want clean water.”

I feel this one in my marrow.

ALOCASIA: 99 queer writers on plants and nature is available to order now!

Sarah Clark is a disabled two-spirit Nanticoke editor, writer, and freelance editor and cultural consultant. They are Editor-in-Chief and Poetry Editor at ANMLY, EIC at beestung, and Co-editor of the Bettering American Poetry series, and a Board member at Sundress Publications. They were co-editor of two folios at Apogee Journal, #NoDAPL #Still Here folio, and their series WE OUTLAST EMPIRE and Place[meant]. You can find them at: https://linktr.ee/sarah_clark.

Ashely Adams is a Michigan-based writer and educator whose work explores both present and ancient ecologies. Her writing has appeared in Flyway, The Fourth River, and other places.

Tara Rahman is a Sundress editorial intern with a BA in English Language and Literature from Smith College and an MSc in Global Development from SOAS, University of London. With a strong interest in culture, identity, and global history, her personal writing focuses on intersectionality and the untold stories of marginalized communities.