BY JOANNA C. VALENTE
Because everything is a poem, and poems are micro-worlds unto themselves, we should be reading poems everyday, all the time. Here are three poems recently published that I love.
Xandria Phillips - “No One Speaks of How Tendrils Feed on the Fruits”
I’ve derived sun-fed design for once from
closing my oak eyes now they’ll never snare the civilian
pullulating my throat
Constantine Jones - “The Silver Maple”
not here, my grandmother
& he is no longer living on the 3rd floor
of The Silver Maple on W. 143rd st.
& i am certain i will never notice
the sunset on that particular fire
escape ever again in my life
but there is still a version of me
too many cigarettes deep
on the scaffolding
my legs still paddling the dusk.
Tiana Clark - “Broken Ode for the Epigraph”
O, little cup holder for my quotes.
I love how you hover over the house
of my poem like a cloud from another
book or a bite from another lover, a way
to say I just couldn’t help myself here. See, I cut
out these lines for you like fuzzy flower stems, severed
at an angle and they were briefly dead until I placed
them in a vase on top of my poems, prolonging
their life again (such moxie!), because if anything
the epigraph is a little clay container of water
and I placed these blossoms in a vase of life juice
because you are visiting the home of my poem
and I want you to feel special
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. They are the author of Sirs & Madams, The Gods Are Dead, Marys of the Sea, Sexting Ghosts, Xenos, No(body) (forthcoming, Madhouse Press, 2019), and is the editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault. They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is the founder of Yes Poetry and the senior managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Some of their writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Them, Brooklyn Magazine, BUST, and elsewhere. Joanna also leads workshops at Brooklyn Poets. joannavalente.com / Twitter: @joannasaid / IG: joannacvalente / FB: joannacvalente