ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Kristin Garth is a poet from Pensacola and a sonnet stalker. Her sonnets have stalked the pages of Luna Luna, Anti-Heroin Chic, Drunk Monkeys, Burning House Press, Paper & Ink Zine Moonchild Magazine and many other publications. Her chapbook, Pink Plastic House, is available through Maverick Duck Press. Her second, Shakespeare for Sociopaths is forthcoming from The Hedgehog Poetry Press in January of 2019.
Preditor
An editor, you choose “organic” when
explaining, to me, how we happened. Like
I’m fruit, plucked, backwoods vine, from thorns. Swells, skin
storm-soaked, seared, southern summer berry ripe
enough to tumble for a moment on
a poet’s tongue before bicuspids tear
bruised exocarp to ooze, undone
to dregs — delicious residue despair.
In truth, you met me in a magazine —
dysfunction with details, abuse outlined
in rhyme, pigtailed photo, poem obscene;
schoolgirl perfect for homework you’d assign.
You use the language of an editor.
You chose a body like a predator.
In all communities, there are power imbalances. Where there is an imbalance of power, there will be people who wield that power for less than noble purposes. In the poetry world, I think writers can be uniquely vulnerable. We write the particulars of our wounds in magazines. Those who seek to use or oppress us have a lot of information/ammunition at their disposal. Our voices have been used against us, but they don't go away. When we use them to decry abuse — to state our objection to enabling abuse the way the brave poetry editors at Boston Review have done, we take that power back. That is what this poem seeks to do.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
