ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey is a writer and artist living in the Bay Area. A 2026 Anthony Veasna So Scholar through the Adroit Journal and a Monarch Queer Literary Award winner, their work appears in publications such as Split Lip Magazine, SmokeLong Quarterly, and the Cincinnati Review. Their writing explores human-nature relation and deconstructs binaries casting humankind in opposition to the natural world.
Previously in Glass: A Journal of Poetry:
with my back to the city
Letterboxd Review for the End Times
Watched a movie last night shot on iPhone 5. Great film,
lit like a dream. Proof of obsolescence manufactured.
Landfill somewhere, acidic with batteries. Acknowledge
collapse, grow bored with it, forget again. Watch a movie.
Eat an avocado. Remember. Recurring sort of dream,
unwakeable. Blood from brain to heart and back again.
Two-way street. Coffee still hot, then cold. Spine aching
by sundown. All the mundanities, cradle-rocked. Slow
violence, they call it: poison in the river silt. Parade day,
yellow shock of daffodils all over again. Cousin’s wedding.
Millionth page of your life. Twenty years later, cancer
of the throat. In the interim, cars learn to drive themselves.
Doctor says: no cure. Stupid wish for cyclone, forest fire,
meteorological alarm clock. Wake up! on an evolutionary
time scale. Annoying little song of stratospheric distress.
Hyperobjects, they call them: things you can point to
only in your mind. Hollywood, example, oil spill,
example, global warming, example, springtime.
Leaving little footprints everywhere. And summer,
far too long. Drought. But don’t think. Drink
coffee before it cools. Watch the movie. Eat the bread.
Attend the circus. Set alarm: six in the morning. Hyperobject
of time. Work tomorrow. Hole in the favorite shirt. Hole
in the ozone layer. No worries. No use. Needle and thread
to the rescue. There’s a movie where we save ourselves.
Fifteen million dollar budget. Impossible science. Three point five
stars out of five. I’d watch it, but I’m tired tonight.
I think it might put me
to sleep.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published monthly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
