Tag: The Wardrobe

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: All Water Has Perfect Memory by Nada Samih-Rotondo

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is an excerpt from All Water Has Perfect Memory by Nada Samih-Rotondo (Jaded Ibis Press 2023).

                            SILENT PERIOD

                                          Rhode Island, 1990

    My  body  is drawn to bodies of water. I was born  in Kuwait
City,  minutes  from  the  shores of  the  Persian  Gulf.  For  six
summers I waded in the waters of the Persian  Gulf,  the same
waters  my grandfather  fished after leaving Palestine to settle
in  Kuwait.  He had  a boat he would take  out in  the  morning
with  his  brothers, returning in the  evening with piles of slip-
pery fish. My grandmother gutted, cleaned, dressed, and fried
or  roasted  this  gift  from  the sea for the family.  My  mother
and  her  siblings  were  born  and  raised  along  those shores,
but  were  never  granted  Kuwaiti  citizenship: a coveted prize
rarely   awarded  to descendants  of  the Palestinian  diaspora.
Nevertheless,  Kuwait  was home  to  my  family,  as  it  was  to
400,000 other Palestinians.
    At  age  six I ended up  in the  United  States,  specifically  in
Rhode  Island,  aptly  nicknamed  the  Ocean  State.  I’ve spent
the  last thirty years  inhaling the salty  Atlantic, the tips of my
fingers pruned, my curly hair matted and waterlogged. I  grew
up   wide-eyed  and  feral,  stomping  along  muddy riverbanks
barely  recovered  from  industrial  ravage.  But  it was  always
the  Mediterranean—the  turquoise  shores  of  Yafa—that  my
blood ebbed toward.

Nada (she/her) is a multi-genre Palestinian writer, educator, and mother deeply attuned to her adopted land’s stories. A refugee English language learner, Nada grew up deeply impacted by family separation and state violence both in Palestine and on Narragansett land or so called Rhode Island. As a working class caretaker, Nada aims to create innovative, anti-imperialist works of literature that play at the intersections of the more than human world, expands imaginations, illuminates connections between land and body, and inspires joyful resistance. Her writing has appeared in Masters Review, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, and others. All Water Has Perfect Memory, a multigenerational hybrid memoir, is her first book.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: All Water Has Perfect Memory by Nada Samih-Rotondo

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is an excerpt from All Water Has Perfect Memory by Nada Samih-Rotondo (Jaded Ibis Press 2023).

                                    MERCY

                                        Yafa, Palestine 1920

Til-yat-ruh-he is an Arabic phrase meaning “my soul rose up,”
describing  an  experience  so  troubling  that your soul almost
leaves   your  body.  I’ve heard  my  mother  say  til-yat-ruh-he
when referencing something being strenuous, painful, or even
boring  if  she  was  being  ironic. I also heard her describe her
experience of birthing me this way.

Nada (she/her) is a multi-genre Palestinian writer, educator, and mother deeply attuned to her adopted land’s stories. A refugee English language learner, Nada grew up deeply impacted by family separation and state violence both in Palestine and on Narragansett land or so called Rhode Island. As a working class caretaker, Nada aims to create innovative, anti-imperialist works of literature that play at the intersections of the more than human world, expands imaginations, illuminates connections between land and body, and inspires joyful resistance. Her writing has appeared in Masters Review, Gulf Stream Literary Magazine, and others. All Water Has Perfect Memory, a multigenerational hybrid memoir, is her first book.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson (Codhill Press 2026).

St Barnabas in the Afterlife

Heaven is just a storage locker for ghosts with no one to haunt.
I spend my days wringing out the laundry of my flesh, airing it
like a braid of garlic from the ceiling. My martyrdom
requires upkeep—patching and darning, and always
the slipping of the parts of me that haven’t yet let go.

Danielle Hanson (she/her) is author of The Night Is What It Eats (Elixir Press Prize), Fraying Edge of Sky (Codhill Press Poetry Prize), and Ambushing Water (Finalist, Georgia Author of the Year), and editor of the poetry anthology Objects in This Mirror (Press 53) and a book of literary criticism. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications, inaugural Poet Laureate of Costa Mesa, California, and Writer-in-Residence at UC Irvine.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson (Codhill Press 2026).

Seed

Everything starts with a seed; this poem, for example. I watered
and watched them every day at first—not able to tell the carrots
from the weeds until the second leaves unfold.

When we got it from the dog’s mouth, it was small, eyes closed,
unmoving on the floor but not dead, not yet. The dog was gentle
with the creature she dug out from under the dresser. What was it,
this outsider? Was it mouse, or squirrel, or rat?

The second leaves are frilled and bright green, small, delicate.
You must thin them, give them room, kill some to save the others.
You try to pick the strongest of the wisps, and trim the others with
scissors, one by one.

Visitors is what the Bible calls angels. In Sodom they were
vulnerable. Their host offers his children to the crowd, to do with
what they please. Kill some to save the others.

Soon after we pry the dog’s mouth, after we gently place the infant
in a bag, after we crush the skull with our heel, weeks later,
we see a mother squirrel carrying a folded baby over half her size
in her mouth. The child clings to her. We watch this mother
teaching this one that’s left to gather leaves from broccoli, fold
them, bunch them into cheeks to carry to safety.

It’s becoming colder at night. We shut our children’s windows
to keep out the cold, to protect. Only some of us are made to see
the Spring.

Danielle Hanson (she/her) is author of The Night Is What It Eats (Elixir Press Prize), Fraying Edge of Sky (Codhill Press Poetry Prize), and Ambushing Water (Finalist, Georgia Author of the Year), and editor of the poetry anthology Objects in This Mirror (Press 53) and a book of literary criticism. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications, inaugural Poet Laureate of Costa Mesa, California, and Writer-in-Residence at UC Irvine.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson (Codhill Press 2026).

Aphorisms for Lips

One lip is the reflection of the other.

Two lips are a rose.

Lips attack in pairs. He should never have approached them.

Lips are tongue-tamers.

Lips try to learn from the teeth how to bite.

Lips spread like honey across her face.

He studied her lips but forgot how to read.

Two lips eloped.

Lips ran to the ears with the news.

Two feral lips peeked out from the beard.

A lip is a trap for pray.

He went to the very lip of her lip and fell in.

Lips cushioned his fall.

Danielle Hanson (she/her) is author of The Night Is What It Eats (Elixir Press Prize), Fraying Edge of Sky (Codhill Press Poetry Prize), and Ambushing Water (Finalist, Georgia Author of the Year), and editor of the poetry anthology Objects in This Mirror (Press 53) and a book of literary criticism. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications, inaugural Poet Laureate of Costa Mesa, California, and Writer-in-Residence at UC Irvine.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson (Codhill Press 2026).

Thunder

Sometimes night wakes up
in the middle of day.

The memory of warm breath on ear’s spiral.
Like a voice whispering thunder,

and then thunder.
Electricity hovering like a kite

casting a shadow,
slice of night blown circling.

Danielle Hanson (she/her) is author of The Night Is What It Eats (Elixir Press Prize), Fraying Edge of Sky (Codhill Press Poetry Prize), and Ambushing Water (Finalist, Georgia Author of the Year), and editor of the poetry anthology Objects in This Mirror (Press 53) and a book of literary criticism. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications, inaugural Poet Laureate of Costa Mesa, California, and Writer-in-Residence at UC Irvine.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from The Night Is What It Eats by Danielle Hanson (Codhill Press 2026).

Aphorisms for the Eyes

An eye is a jellyfish caught from the see.

A glass eye is like a fake accent.

An eye is the most fragile thing you can’t drop.

A goddess decorating a tree with eyes.

The eyes will always have it.

A tear is the fruit of the eye.

How does one look for a lost eye?

An eye is a target.

There are two eyes in I.

The lashes are the gates of the eyes.

Not only cloudy eyes produce rain.

He was sentenced to a thousand eyelashes.

He asked for a thousand more.

Danielle Hanson (she/her) is author of The Night Is What It Eats (Elixir Press Prize), Fraying Edge of Sky (Codhill Press Poetry Prize), and Ambushing Water (Finalist, Georgia Author of the Year), and editor of the poetry anthology Objects in This Mirror (Press 53) and a book of literary criticism. She is Marketing Director for Sundress Publications, inaugural Poet Laureate of Costa Mesa, California, and Writer-in-Residence at UC Irvine.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke (Driftwood Press 2026).

LGB  NO LONGER MY 4-LE  ER WORD

Yeah I’m rans bu mos people can’ ell.
Maybe hey can ell I’m nonbinary bu mos days
hey jus misgender me “hey mam” ( hough I’m no ).
I was born his way, I always knew I was a boy
growing up bu back hen I was called “ omboy”
which a leas had “boy” in he name. Puber y
blockers weren’ a hing hen, bu sex-change
surgery was and I ried every angle bu my paren s
wouln’ buy i , so I s opped asking and grew up
wi h he wrong hormones coursing hrough me.
I looked like a sor of girl bu fel s ill so much
like a guy bu hen over ime I admi I grew o
apprecia e my female hink bu s ill, I never did
adjus o my body so I wear loose clo hing I wear
a rucker cap a lo (mos of he ime backwards)
and have never been a fan of mirrors bu I don’
wan surgery anymore because i ’s surgery… and
I have already been hrough oo much. I ’s a personal
decision o live (as I do, a “ hey / hem) and I was glad
when hose pronouns became ubiqui ous
because hen I defini ely fel more seen. Bu of course
“ hey/ hem” since he las elec ion isn’ qui e as
accep ed jus like I’m no qui e as accep ed…
Presiden rump said in his inaugura ion speech
I don’ even exis ! I was in Canada during ha
momen so didn’ hear him bu he said here are
only wo genders and hey are dic a ed by your body
a bir h. rump is mis aken on his, jus like he is
abou so many hings. He go rid of our rans flag
and he go rid of our le er “ ” in LGB bu he can’
ge rid of me no ma er wha he akes away
or how he spells ha e.

National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book,  I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke (Driftwood Press 2026).

OUT LATE

So yeah, I know it feels late
telling you this I mean sure
me having had a trans kid—
pretty grand omission right?

Hear me out on this particular
elephant room-sauntering—
it’s not like K appeared trans
all his life just different to me

in a takes one to know one way.
Really mostly we were flipping
pancakes, carting K & his sibs
to basketball, soccer, jujitsu, art

music lessons same as any other
attempting non-dysfunction fam
with queer parents navigating
difficult weekend fathers and K

adamantly hetero before lesbian
-leaning finally realizing he was
he so we jumped right in helping
transition along the way sourcing

gender affirming medical care
ushering K through changing
his legal name birth certificate
driver’s license passport under-

wear hoodies socks watch razor
shave cream deodorant hair gel
nose piercing even warranting
a shift. I admit having post-op





post top surgery squeamishness
changing his drains, thankfully
his brother A, trained as EMT,
rescued us both, so I got away

only double knotting trash bags
filled with blood-soaked gauze.
K asked me to edit most family
and childhood photos he looked

not masculine in, so I cut them
up tiny before igniting in a fire
pit fire burning K’s old bras too
as we celebrated ashes tangoing

across our lawn while Sia sang
Chandelier loud out of the blue-
tooth speaker K knocked over
reaching for his third Herradura.

Wild joy like that night needs to be
protected, so I tuck it tight. Bind it
close to my heart—never risking it
being diluted by a big gender stew.

National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book,  I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.


The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke

This feature, chosen by Guest Editor EMDASH, is from I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side by J Brooke (Driftwood Press 2026).

CANCER SCARE

That’s how I know for sure I don’t
want top surgery I of course want

the outcome come out flat smooth
skin I want the reflection I always

squinted into mirrors hoping to see
myself reflected outside a loose tee

shirt beneath button downs ajar like
curtains loose layers layered looser

I pull again and again yanking poor
innocent fibers imploring they offer

impossible space for me to hide I’d
toss them all begin a fresh downsize

to medium or small jettison my soupy
slouchy swimmy threads dump donate

or burn the motherfuckers I desire that
outcome if only I can just blink it onto

me, awake to hands exploring my torso
my flat smooth chest no longer breasts

inhaling exhaling proudly satisfied and
yet I don’t get it that surgery     I do not

choose surgery I do not elect it fearing
instead the scalpels needles anesthesia





I wonder was it the tonsillectomy I did
not need, elective surgery I didn’t elect

at 4 when I didn’t get a vote or was it
that rhinoplasty at 17 against my will

still no vote no voice my body bones
and skin I had in the game no control

like my uncle Stanley punctured at 42
by drains tubes liquid in and liquid out

emaciated once handsome stud I loved
visiting him that last hospital time that

could have done it But the lump under
my arm in my armpit (even my lymph

nodes avoid my breasts) so scary one
doctor calls another for a favor to see

me See them today it’s important
please and I go and they poke

and avert their eyes frown prod
order the MRI ASAP as I dress

recalling all those times I begged
god please don’t give me cancer

don’t make it cancer anything
but cancer but if I must cancer

god, please breast cancer then
radical bilateral removal   not



elective but medically mandated
dissolution solution my problem

But I skirt death again the tests show
the lump is just some something acting

up inside me, a minor revolt I need no
surgery so I won’t get surgery and I live

on in the body I was mistakenly wrapped
inside Unwanted gift to myself I remain

National Bestselling author J Brooke’s (they/them) debut poetry book,  I Can Tell You The Version That Will Make You Take My Side, received a starred Kirkus review, is a USA Today Bestseller, is included in Ms. Magazine’s Best Poetry Books of 2026, won Driftwood Press’s Editor Choice Award, and was Ashland Press’s 2025 Richard Snyder Prize Finalist. Brooke’s other honors include Pushcart & Best of the Net nominations, The Iowa Review’s 2025 Nonfiction Prize Finalist, Columbia Journal’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize Winner. Their work appears in Electric Lit, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Harvard Review, and elsewhere. They are Poetry Editor at Trans Poetics Archive and the Book Reviews Editor at The Rumpus. They can be found at JBrookewrites.com.

Photo Credit: Juan Camillo Garza

EMDASH a.k.a Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) (she/they) is a poet-who-also-writes-fiction, educator, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve received support from LAMBDA, McCormack Writing Center, Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, The Chinese American Museum of LA, Jersey City Arts Council and more. She has learned as much from community organizing and open mics as she did from her Rutgers-Newark MFA in Poetry. They’re published in Poetry Northwest, ANMLY, Alocasia, Underblong and elsewhere. She proudly hosted, produced, and curated The Word Bookstore Open Mic for two years.