| | | Aziza Barnes, Natalie Diaz, and more. | | | | | | | | | |  | | | | December 27, 2016 | Letter No. 66 | | | | | | | | | | | | Hello my dearest Lenny humans,
We made it to the end of the year. Things aren't what we wanted them to be, but as we get more used to the new world in which we live — and being used to it doesn't mean being complacent about its many terrifying faults — we are starting to allow ourselves to feel joy and pleasure again.
And so I am incredibly stoked to have put together this year's poetry issue for you. It's an issue that is about passionate feelings — real ones and imagined ones — inside and outside and all around us. All the poets contained here see the world in a singular way and have somehow invented a new vision for language to serve their purposes.
Natalie Diaz's sensuality creeps up on you, and then suddenly it envelops you whole. I absolutely love her rumination on the Native American roots of the word "Manhattan." Rin Johnson, whose excellent Nobody Sleeps Better Than White People I read and fell in love with earlier this year, writes about patience and about bodies and about gender in such a way that reading becomes a full-body experience.
Sarah Jean Alexander's work has saved me before. I adore the way she writes about relationships, whether happy ones, or sad ones, or ones that no longer exist. Grace Dunham's short poems are a call to arms, a call to love and to be freed, to be free. Every time I read them I end up feeling a different aspect. And I love getting lost in Aziza Barnes's exquisite poems, submerging myself in the negative space between the words, letting myself go dizzy reading her sentences without breathing.
To top it all off, we have a beautiful portfolio of collages by the artist Miki Lowe. I've had her work on the Pinterest board where I keep track of all the artists I come across for a long time. When I commissioned these from her, I asked myself, Why didn't I ask her to do work for us before? I now know that it's because the universe was clearly making me wait for this point in time, for precisely this group of poems.
I hope you luxuriate in the words contained within, I hope you share them with your friends and loved ones, I hope you read them out loud to each other, and I hope that if you feel so inclined, that you will find hope and strength and beauty to take on the New Year with open arms and an open heart.
Here's to you, my dears.
Laia | | | | | | | | | | | | Natalie Diaz | | | | | |
| (All Illustrations by Miki Lowe) |
Manhattan is a Lenape Word
from the ACE Hotel, Midtown
It is December, and we must be brave.
The ambulance's rose of light
blooming against the window.
Its single siren-cry: Help me.
A silk-red shadow moving like water
through the orchard of her thigh.
Her, come—in the green night, a lion.
I sleep her bees with my mouth of smoke,
dip honey with my hands sweetened
on the dark and hive of her breast.
Out of the eater I eat. Meaning,
She is mine, colony.
The things I know aren't always easy:
I'm the only Native American
on the 8th floor of this hotel or any,
looking out any window
of a turn-of-the-century building
in Manhattan. Manhattan is
a Lenape word.
Even a watch must be wound.
How can a century or a heart turn
if nobody asks, Where have all
the natives gone?
If you are where you are, then where
are those who are not here? Not here.
Which is why in this city I have
many lovers. All my loves
are reparations loves.
What is loneliness if not unimaginable
light and measured in lumens—
an electric bill which must be paid,
a taxi cab floating across three lanes
with its lamp lit, gold in wanting.
At 2 a.m. everyone in New York City
is empty and asking for someone.
Again, the siren's same wide note:
Help me. Meaning, I have a gift
and it is my body, made two-handed
of gods and bronze.
She says, You make me feel
like lightning. I say, I don't ever
want to make you feel that white.
It's too late—I can't stop seeing
her bones. I'm counting the carpals,
metacarpals of her hand
when she is inside me.
One bone, the lunate bone, is named
for its crescent outline, lunatus, luna.
Some nights she rises like that in me,
like trouble—a slow, luminous, flux.
The moon beckons the lonely
coyote wandering West 29th Street
by offering its long wrist of light.
The coyote answers by lifting its head
and crying stars.
Somewhere far from New York City,
an American drone finds then loves
a body—the glowing nectar it seeks
through great darkness—makes
a candle-hour of it, and burns
gently along it, like American touch,
an unbearable heat.
The siren song returns in me,
I sing it to her throat: Am I
what I love? Is this the glittering world
I've been begging for?
Natalie Diaz was born and raised in the Fort Mojave Indian Village in Needles, California, on the banks of the Colorado River. She is Mojave and an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Tribe. Diaz teaches at Arizona State University and the Institute of American Indian Arts Low Rez MFA program. Her first poetry collection is When My Brother Was an Aztec. | | | | | | | | | | | | Rin Johnson | | | | | | |
I ponder a woman
In the midst of emancipation
Wrung out in the sun
Something to hitch meat to
Free
Free
Free
patience or whatever
sophia says that jen said that she grew out her hair to learn patience and sophia says that she grew out her hair to learn patience too. i don't know shit about patience but i know sophia learned patience from growing out her hair, which is now so long that it touches her butt and falls out all the time. sometimes i see the clippers on the top shelf of the ikea bathroom cabinet that i pay too much money a day to look at, a price i split with my dog and my father. my father showed me the other day that sometimes to close a bag you have to expand it. he said "relax, watch and you might learn something." damn. he knows how much i love learning. my father is patient, but he has short hair. my father and i look exactly the same and sound exactly alike. we both drink too much but he is patient and i am not. seeing those clippers i just want to call the whole thing off. what dyke needs long hair? am i a dyke? jess looks good in her long hair but is jess a dyke? or is jess a patient dyke? why can't i be patient like jess. i'm so tired of being Black and Gay in the United States, i want to move back to Europe but you can't just move back to Europe when you're Black and Gay in the United States. i'm so tired because i don't have any patience, apparently it gets Better. sophia's dad said that i cannot visit the monastery on the other side of the Hudson until i learn to be patient. my hair is only an inch long if i don't blow-dry it. i wish it would fall out like sophia's. sometimes i think all i have is sophia and her dog and my dog who is her dog's brother. i know that isn't true but sometimes that is what i think. i have jet lag and stay up late and i read art forum and eileen myles and i miss my girlfriend and i think about how terrible i am to be able to be so impatient and so able to miss. i fail and i fail and i fail. but jen grew out her hair to learn patience and so if i just let mine keep growing maybe i'll learn something.
You can fuck women and still love them, right?
I think this all the time when I have my 7 inches of silicone inside of someone's pussy. I care for you so I choke you. I care for you so I objectify you. You look like my new headphones. You look like my new adidas. You look tired in the hot way. Thank you for letting me pretend to come inside you. Trans-men are the worst. Actually I am the worst. Am I trans or just a dyke who is too lazy to get top surgery? Must resist labeling self. Must resist desire for more adidas. Must stop being so lazy. I did not even change my pronouns everybody else did it for me. Or everybody else that looks like me changed their pronouns and so by looking like them I changed mine too. I have dyke tattooed on the back of my neck. Or I've been dragged into the revolution. I'm not mad, just submissive. Bottoming from the top – is that a thing? Sarah said everybody is secretly a bottom because we'd all rather not think about anything- just show up and cum. So it seems it's they and them and theirs not she or her or hers. After all that herbal testosterone, one day I could use the women's restroom and then another day I could not. The only problem is that women's restrooms are cleaner but I can't scare little girls anymore. Not for a clean restroom. I'm not that fucked up. Or Am I? Must resist going to therapy. Must resist resolving mommy issues. Must resist resolving daddy issues. Must resist gender. Besides, men don't blink when you go to the stall. Some men like to sit they think. I always forget I cannot talk in the men's restroom; my balls have not dropped yet. They won't. They will. They have. They have not. At least my daddy is rich and my mother is good looking and the water from the tap is clean with a Brita and I have a studio where I make objects to objectify and stick my dick into. I have ok skin now that I am older and I'm pretty cute with my glasses on. The revolution looks ok on my hips and in my boxer briefs. If I drink more Soylent I bet it will look even better. I am not that old because I still get carded but I am old enough to never want to be out unless someone tells me where I am going. You can fuck women and still love them. I'm going to bottom out. I'll take it from behind. Whatever. I don't care. Please don't touch me. I'm sorry. Please touch me. You look great. I should go.
Rin Johnson is a Brooklyn based sculptor and poet. Moving between Virtual Reality, sculpture and the printed word, Johnson has exhibited and read in Europe and the US. Johnson is the author of two books, "Nobody Sleeps Better Than White People" from Inpatient Press and the forthcoming VR Book, "Meet in the Corner" from Publishing House. Johnson founded Imperial Matters (a space for liquid poetry) with Sophia Le Fraga. | | | | | | | | | | | | Sarah Jean Alexander | | | | | | |
All of the people I know who have drowned
In the middle of my bath I realize
I don't remember how to take one
Impatiently, I rest my book on the lid of the toilet
and take my tea bag out of the mug
I watch the brown English breakfast
drip into the blue transparent water
covering my belly as I lift the tea bag
to my chest and shake it
forcing more amber colored drops
onto my nipples, spreading thin over them
catching slightly over stray hairs
before leaking into the bath water
I lower the bag into the tub
and pour the remaining tea from the mug into the blue
I put my chin down and swallow the new
I can't remember where my father's father is buried
but I know my mother's was lost in the ocean
and is most likely still there in some form
inside of the Yellow Sea
For now, all of the people I know
who have drowned
are men and younger men
When I got out of the bath
you held my head in the hotel room
as we embraced and I thought oh god
this is an intimate moment
and then I closed my eyes
and allowed myself to feel it
A calming note about your life today
is that the sunset looks like
a peach that caught fire
and is speeding away from you
so that you don't have to burn
Cognizance
You press your finger
into the part
where my belly fat
meets the top of my legs
when I sit down
and the crease
absorbs you completely
I suddenly become
hyperaware
that a person can only
suck in their stomach
I take a deep breath
as you tell me
nothing eventful happened
at work today
You take a deeper breath
as I tell you I hate the sea
and everything contained in it
because I am terrified of its darkness
and the depth of it
You bring a raspberry pastry to your lips
and I think
Is there ever going to be
a more delicious bite
When one says surrender
I stepped over a single feather on a sidewalk square
It was barely broken, clean and straight
I thought hope that bird is ok
You took a shower directly after me
and saw strands of my hair lining the tub drain
But you did not say
a small prayer for me
That would be insane
I'm fine, you idiot I say to myself
I never especially wanted to put a man on a leash
until you came home from work one day
with a piece of twine wrapped three times around your neck
It was previously used to hold wash rags together
You began to untie the knot
I told you to keep it on and I led you to bed
When you went down on me
I wrapped the twine tightly around my fist
until there was no more give
pulling you so close to my skin and bone
that there wasn't any possibility for you to breathe
Anyway I don't care about what's in
my mouth, or yours
I don't even think about it
I only care about smiling
and worrying about whether or not
I am doing too much of it
Sarah Jean Alexander wrote Wildlives (Big Lucks Books, 2015) and LOUD IDIOTS (Second Books, 2016). She is the poetry editor of Shabby Doll House and tweets @sarahjeanalex. | | | | | | | | | | | | Grace Dunham | | | | | | |
From Stage
Is there some guilt in the audience tonight?
Is anyone guilty in the audience tonight?
Does anyone in the audience wish they were richer than they are tonight?
Does anyone in the audience wish they were thinner than they are tonight?
Anyone want to be more famous than they are tonight?
Do we have some jealously in the audience tonight? Some envy? Some spite? Some hatred and resentment?
Raise your hands if you've cheated, lied, or stolen in the audience tonight. Raise your hands if you've been dumped in the audience tonight.
Do we have some jealous girls, in the audience, tonight?
Do we have some pain in the audience tonight? Make some noise if you're living a lie tonight, if you're trapped inside your own life tonight.
Let me hear you scream, if you're guilty, in the audience tonight.
Let me hear you scream, if you're lonely, in the audience tonight.
We've got a wild show coming up, and an amazing audience tonight. We've got a guilty audience, tonight. We've got a guilty audience, tonight.
Brevity (for Alex)
I count 34 stars
5 Steeples
3 hill-tops
1 sea
1 distant peninsula
a town of uninterrupted white houses
I count 45 things whose lives are longer than my own
I anchor myself to my brevity
I don't matter and I am invaluable
contradiction
success won't make us live forever; but obscurity seems no different than death
we know our sadness isn't our fault; but we punish ourselves every day
we know scarcity is a self-sustaining myth; we cry in our bedrooms when others succeed
we know that beauty is harmful myth; we still long to be mythical
we believe in interconnectivity; we put ourselves first, always
we know men and women aren't real; we still want them to want us
we know power isn't earned; somehow, certain people still shine
being alive should be enough; we still want more
Grace Dunham is a writer and activist from New York City, currently living in Los Angeles. Their first chapbook of poetry is available at thefool.us. Their current project, Support.FM, developed with Jodie, is a crowdfunding platform to help trans and gender nonconforming people in jail and detention raise money for bail and bond. | | | | | | | | | | | | Aziza Barnes | | | | | |
Aziza Barnes is blk & alive. Born in Los Angeles, Aziza currently lives in Oxford, Mississippi. Aziza's first chapbook, me Aunt Jemima and the nailgun, was the first winner of the Exploding Pinecone Prize, from Button Poetry and first full length collection of poems, i be but i ain't, is the winner of the 2015 Pamet River Prize with YesYes Books. Aziza is a co-host of The Poetry Gods and co-founder of The Conversation Literary Festival. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | The email newsletter where there's no such thing as too much information.
From Lena Dunham + Jenni Konner. | | | | | | | |  |  | | |
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