Hi friends,
Even since the last time I wrote, somehow, time feels like a different thing. The day we read at the Governors' Island NYC Poetry Festival feels like the most beautiful dream, filled with flowers and hugs and cheers. Sunburnt and running for the last ferry, choosing each others' poems to read at the last minute, being introduced by the incredible Angel Nafis, seeing all of us together for the first time in years.
Thank you to those who came and those who supported our donations to For the Gworls & Auxilio Space by purchasing one of our beautiful zines!
And last I wrote, I left you with a bit of a cliffhanger, that one of my favorite poets had chosen my poem as the winner for a poetry prize. Now I can finally reveal that it was Chen Chen, for my poem "Untitled, 2020 (after Ren Hang)" in Sine Theta's summer contest! I'm so honored especially because Sine Theta was one of the very first places to publish my work back in their issue 13. And it was so lovely to read this poem to my friends at the festival.
I wrote this poem all in one night after not having written for many, many months. Suddenly, the urgency. I had lived it so deeply and so long that the poem came out ready. I had to write it in order to move forward with time, if that makes sense. Ren Hang, the photographer whose work inspired this poem, took his life in 2017 but we didn't connect so closely until now. I love that Sine Theta incorporated some of his photographs into the artwork. Please do check out more of his provocative work if you'd like.
I will continue to hold closely what Chen said of it, too:
What a poem for these pandemic times—at once slowish-calm and urgently full of tumult. Time here is plural and layered, transnational and lunar.
I'll be doing a reading of that piece (and maybe some other things?) this Saturday, August 28, 8pm EST in a virtual event with Sine Theta.
So it's funny that after all this talk of time I'd leave with you a calendar event. Two more poems to center you temporally — "Monday" by Alex Dimitrov for your Monday blues, and "Spring Summer Autumn Winter", by Chen Chen.
Ever forward,
Alice
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