Poetry by Jeannine M. Pitas

BY JEANNINE M. PITAS

June 24

Feast of St. John the Baptist

Today my head has been removed,
traded for a jug of wine, a pluck
of the lyre, a young girl's careless
dance. In Orthodox icons I hold
myself on a platter; faithful ones
bend forward to kiss. I never knew
this was the price of living
on locusts and wild honey, for preparing
my cousin the carpenter's way. Today the light 
begins its slow death; I know 
I will rise again. In two thousand years, a girl
who bears my name will dance
around a bonfire, surrounded by old men and women, 
tiniest children, dancers on stilts, young 
girls in white dresses with ivy crowns. 
She will whirl and whirl, dizzyingly dance, 
exalting in her own beauty.
The price will be her head.
A man she thought she loved
will smash her into a wall
and her head will fall off.
She will pick it up, carry it in
a backpack or purse while a replacement
is painted over the space. Years later, again
on my day, she will sit on a bench on Aliki Peninsula
beside the marble ruins of a basilica
made in my cousin's name. 
She will look at the columns and archways, watch 
summer's highest, brightest light fall
on the olive trees. I will come to her,
take her hand. When I wipe away 
the painted face, she will open 
her purse and hold out to me
the torn head she still holds. My cousin
will come to help me. We will lift it, 
place it on her shoulders, suture that wound 
as all the scarved women
lighting candles before Orthodox icons
have done for me. We will help her
to her feet, beckon her to join us
in our search for others 
who've lost their heads.

Wings of Desire

An angel whispers to readers in the library.
He's tired of everyone wanting something different.

A trapeze artist dressed like an angel
doesn't know that real angels are wingless.

I wait for my photo at the machine
and emerge with another face.

This is the world of one-shoed walkers
who shade themselves with borrowed umbrellas,

sign their names with dropped pens,
open doors with lost keys.

Stones come alive. Time can't heal. 
No, time's the illness.

The first strands of grey hair. An old photo album.
The lost storyteller, lost peace. 

The blue ocean, sky. Afternoon coffees. 
Cuban cigars. Dragons. The bed.

The world that shrinks to the size of a room.
The choir of young women who come to sing.

The grass tall enough to hide
or make love in.

The deep river you didn't find hard to cross
because your beloved was waiting on the other side.

An  immortal singer turned organ grinder,
ignored or mocked. 

Abandoned railroad tracks. The other side.
The crucifix hanging from the classroom wall.

The plaid uniform your grandmother starched.
The borders. The country with as many states

as there are citizens. Rags pledged to each morning,
folded each afternoon. Shibboleths.

Barbed wire. Private security guards.
The world in color. Sunsets, lonely rooms.

Cherry cough drops. A nurse's kind face.
Your bed. The lamp turned off. 

Panic 

I met Pan when I was 21. It's said he, god of shepherds, can be found in mountain fields, but I encountered him on my college campus, in a hidden quad behind a stone building with icicles dangling from the roof, tiny daggers. It was winter. He came alone. He struck me with his staff and gave me altitude; my insides crumpled like autumn's last falling leaf, shriveled as a sheet of ice hit my shoulder. I lay there. The snow shone gold; the treetops blazed, but no voice emerged from within them, no all-important “I am.” Just the opposite: “I am not.” This is not me. I shook and saw a strange aura around myself, a halo of gold and green. Rats and mice nipped my toes; the ground opened to reveal sharp rocks waiting to tear me into sinews and blood. Beneath them a blue sea waited to caress me and not let me go, beauty and terror both much too close. At last he turned away. It took a few minutes to trust he wouldn't be back. The mountain flattened; the blazing trees regained their green. In the distance I heard the bells of sheep, their gentle bleating. A blue sky entered my insides. I stood; I could feel the halo still around me. I could still smell the aroma of meadows after winter's melting, of soft trilliums drinking the sun between the branches of skeletal trees; I could taste the first mint leaves. Lush pastures rolled through my stomach; my heart broke into cumulus clouds; pink mimosa flowers sprung from my hands. My lungs were filled with the blueness of early spring.

Jeannine M. Pitas is a poet, teacher, and Spanish-English literary translator. Originally from Buffalo, New York, she has called many places home: Montevideo, Krakow, Managua, Toronto, and most recently Dubuque, Iowa, where she has resided since 2015. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks: Our Lady of the Snow Angels (2012) and A Place to Go (2015), both published by Lyricalmyrical Press in Toronto, and thank you for dreaming (2018), published by Lummox Press in 2018. Her translation for four books by acclaimed Uruguayan poet Marosa di Giorgio was published as I Remember Nightfall by Ugly Duckling Presse and shortlisted for the 2018 National Translation Award. Her first full-length collection of poetry, Things Seen and Unseen, is forthcoming from Oakville, Ontario-based Mosaic Press. She teaches literature, writing, and Spanish at the University of Dubuque.

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You’re Supposed to Drown Witches by Nikkin Rader

BY NIKKIN RADER

You’re supposed to drown witches

But sometimes their gramarye is too strong
or because they can fructify, you salt their roots
what spells can be mussitated or what cities can be clogged by a nimbus
or aura too bright, why birds ululate in the morning
A daymare rising to breeze as if summerfruit or floral berrying,
slicing thru even the gravid among us, incogitant in its mechanizing ruth
To suffer them a living is a damning offense, before a lashing at wooded phallus
forest infertile in their soil by fire
A terror on gender and sucking into vortex, its evil sighting,
to be marked by deviling mammary ridge
a press for paper to burn

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Nikkin Rader has degrees in poetry, anthropology, philosophy, gender & sexuality studies, and other humanities and social science. Her works appear in Drunk Monkeys, Coalesce Zine, Perfectly Normal Magazine, the sad bitch chronicles, Silk + Smoke, Recenter Press, Occulum, Pussy Magic, and elsewhere. You can follow her twitter or insta @wecreeptoodeep

Poetry by Danielle Rose

BY DANIELLE ROSE

Variations on Drawing Down the Moon


it is about drawing things in. i want

to be tree-roots / & lightning

striking an open field.

how first i open myself like the face

of the moon / so that i become

the face of the moon.

& into me flows the face of the moon.

goddess / descend into me

through me into the earth.

it is about remaining open like how

i want to be tree-roots / to hold

you both hopeful & ashamed

that i may be unfaithful / i imagine

that i am tree leaves & they

drink in the moonlight

& into me flows the hungry moon.

goddess / projection / demon 

whatever just enter me now.

this is how you drink

divinity / & perhaps why 

tides swell. in both there is dancing.

arms toward the sky / you drink god

then she seeps out again.

this must be how

we can bear to be so empty / so

we can be so full / so we can be tree-root

drawing ourselves into the moon.

On Dancing

these are the skills i never quite understood / the idea of celebration 

like a trip to the dentist / i understand how out of place i am 

awkward everything elbows & shoulders / awful at blowing out candles 

& my wishes were just beads of sweat a sudden dampness 

a stumble / because this was how i was taught to dance 

to step on others’ toes / but i am not awaiting extradition

i am learning how to belong to where i am / because this is the way a sewing needle 

becomes a sword / & how i stitch together myself a dance 

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Danielle Rose lives in Massachusetts with her partner and their two cats. She is the managing editor of Dovecote Magazine and used to be a boy.

Poetry by Laura Paul

BY LAURA PAUL

Laura Paul is a writer living in Los Angeles. Previously, her work has been published by the Brooklyn Rail, Coffin Bell Journal, Entropy Magazine, FIVE:2:ONE, Shirley Magazine, Soft Cartel, Touring Bird, and featured at the West Hollywood Book Fair and Los Angeles Zine Fair. She is the author of Entropy's monthly astrology column, Stars to Stories, and since June 2018 she's been filming a weekly video series of her poetry at poemvideo.com. She was raised in Sacramento, earned her B.A. from the University of Washington, Seattle, and her Master's from UCLA where she was the recipient of the 2011 Gilbert Cates Fellowship. She can be found on Twitter and Instagram as @laura_n_paul.

Wearing Sylvia Plath’s Lipstick

BY PATRICIA GRISAFI

The dutifully hip girl behind the register at the Chelsea Urban Outfitters was sporting a ravishing shade of reddish, hot pinkish lipstick. 

“That’s a great color,” I said. “Who makes it?” 

“It’s by Revlon. The color is called Cherries in the Snow. You really can’t forget that name, can you?” 

I stopped by Duane Reade on the way home and picked up a tube, knowing full well that the lipstick would end up in the heart-shaped box in the closet where all my other lipsticks went to die. 

You know how some women wear lipstick every day as a matter of routine? They can apply a perfect lip while riding a bike, walking a tightrope, or herding ten unruly toddlers. I’m not talking about beige-y pinks or fleshy nudes, but serious, bright, punch-you-in-the-face colors. 

I’m not one of those women. 

Time and time again I’ve proven incompetent at the simple task of applying a lipstick that isn’t the color of my lip; usually, I look like someone’s grandmother in Fort Lauderdale on her fifth Valium and third Mai Tai. Still, every few months, I’ll give a new color a whirl only to frown in the mirror and return to my trusty mess-proof staple since the 90s: Clinique Black Honey. 

Would Cherries in the Snow convert me? 

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and carefully drew on a bright, pinkish-red grin. Then I fussed a bit, cleaning up the lines with a Q-tip and some concealer. I cocked my head to the side, bared my teeth like a hyena. I imagined myself tooling around the East Village in white Birkenstocks and large black sunglasses, with a bouquet of bodega peonies in one hand and a coffee in the other. I’d give a breezy, hot pink smile and everyone would think I was quirky and chic. 

By the end of the week, Cherries in the Snow was in the heart-shaped graveyard of lipsticks past. 

The next time I heard of Cherries in the Snow was in a book. Pain, Parties, and Work by Elizabeth Winder details poet Sylvia Plath’s harrowing experience as a guest editor for Mademoiselle in the summer of 1953. Readers will recognize many of the events Plath writes about in The Bell Jar as based on the details of that summer: getting food poisoning, figuring out fashion, suffering from depression. 

There’s one mundane detail that Plath doesn’t include in The Bell Jar: her preferred lipstick: “She wore Revlon’s Cherries in the Snow lipstick on her very full lips,” Winder writers. 

I thought I knew an absurd amount about Sylvia Plath. As one of my earliest and long-standing loves, I’ve read and re-read her poems and fiction, written about her work in my Doctoral thesis, visited her homes in both Massachusetts and London, even touched her hair under the careful eyes of the curators at the Lilly Library, Bloomington. But I had missed this small, seemingly insignificant detail. 

Revlon has manufactured Cherries in the Snow for the past sixty two years; it’s known as one of their “classic” shades, along with another popular color, Fire and Ice. It’s a cult item, a relic from another era when most women wore lipstick faithfully (a fun but gross tidbit from Winder’s book: one 1950s survey revealed that 98 percent of women wore lipstick; 96 percent of women brushed their teeth). The color isn’t exactly the same as it was when Plath wore it because of changes in industry practice, but it’s pretty damn close. 

I scrambled for the heart-shaped lipstick box and sat cross-legged in front of it, fishing around for Cherries in the Snow. I held the shiny black tube in my hand like Indiana Jones held the idol in the beginning scenes of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The lipstick seemed different, changed. Imbued with special meaning. I swiped on a coat, this time imagining how Plath might have applied her makeup, what she might have thought as she looked back in the mirror. Did it change her mood, feel comforting, bestow power? 

People are interested in discovering the mundane habits of their favorite singers, actors, writers, and artists. They might even purchase a product based solely on a celebrity endorsement. I’ve always been interested in finding out what products my favorite dead icons used, as if I can access a part of their lost inner lives by slathering on Erno Laszlo’s Phormula 3-9 (one of Marilyn Monroe’s favorite creams) or spritzing myself with Fracas (Edie Sedgwick’s signature scent). Wearing Cherries in the Snow allowed me to experience a strange intimacy with a writer I admired, even more so than reading the very personal things Plath wrote about — including how satisfying scooping a pesky glob of snot from her nose feels. 

Ultimately, Cherries in the Snow did not become my lipstick, but I gained an appreciation for the shared ritual with and strange connection to Plath that it allowed me to experience. So many of the artists who have influenced our lives are gone; it feels comforting to find a bit of their essence in something as tangible as makeup. 

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Patricia Grisafi is a New York City-based freelance writer, editor, and former college professor. She received her PhD in English Literature in 2016. She is currently an Associate Editor at Ravishly. Her work has appeared in Salon, Vice, Bitch, The Rumpus, Bustle, The Establishment, and elsewhere. Her short fiction is published in Tragedy Queens (Clash Books). She is passionate about pit bull rescue, cursed objects, and horror movies.

Poetry by Denise Jarrott

BY DENISE JARROTT

Denise Jarrott is the author of a collection of poems called NYMPH (vegetarian alcoholic press) and a chapbook, Nine Elegies (dancing girl press). Her work has appeared in Black Warrior Review, Bombay Gin, The Volta, Poor Claudia, and elsewhere. She was nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize and is currently at work on a series of essays in conversation with Roland Barthes' A Lover's Discourse. She lives in Brooklyn.

The Astrolushes Podcast: Skeptics, Cosmic Lessons, & Authenticity

Astrolushes is a podcast at the intersection of astrology and literature, ritual, wellness, pop culture, creativity — and, of course, wine. Expect guests, giveaways, & games — and get ready to go deep with us.

The water-sign hosts are Andi Talarico, poet, book reviewer and Strega (@anditalarico) & Lisa Marie Basile, poet, author of Light Magic for Dark Times, & editor of Luna Luna Magazine (@lisamariebasile + @lunalunamag). You can the astrolushes on Twitter, too, here.

LISA MARIE BASILE: Let’s chat about the birth of AstroLushes! I think it sort of started on a drive we took to Salem, MA, where we witched out for a weekend and visited HausWitch for my Light Magic for Dark Times writing workshop. In the car, I threw celebrity and literary names at you and had you guess their big 3 signs. You were amazingly on point! I'm wondering, besides having fun with it, what do you personally think the 'use' or 'reason' for this astro-knowledge is? I think people are generally fascinated, but we both know there's more to it.

ANDI TALARICO: That road trip and our time in Salem definitely feels like the genesis of this show! It started with us guessing celebrity's charts and now it's just a part of all of our conversations. I feel like now we're constantly wondering about writers and actors and philosophers through the lens of their astrological placements. It's a fun game but I think it also allows for a possibly deeper understanding of the art and culture that we engage with.

And engagement was how I came to astrology. My mother always read our horoscopes from the paper when I was growing up; she's a mystical Pisces who has visited psychics, believes in prophetic dreams, and finds herself fascinated by the moon. I inherited a lot of my curiosity from her. But by age 12 our household had changed considerably and it became a harder place to exist and grow in. So it's no surprise to me, looking back, why that was the time I started studying astrology.

It was a way of making sense of the world. It also gave me an opportunity to talk to people about themselves (and to keep the focus off of myself.) It made me feel like I had some sort of agency, a voice, a new authority. Now, the language of astrology, to me, is less about telling people about themselves and actually, much like my tarot practice, using the themes and ideas as lessons that we can use to fully become our best, most authentic selves. That's where it crosses over into self-care as well.

How do you feel about people who think astrology is bogus, Lisa?

Astrology…much like tarot practice, uses the themes and ideas as lessons that we can use to fully become our best, most authentic selves. That's where it crosses over into self-care as well. — Andi Talarico

LISA MARIE BASILE: I love that you say it's an engagement with everything around us. And that, as a child, it helped you navigate a very difficult world. It truly is a language we learn and then we speak, and that can bring people together in an instant. And it can help us focus on the many characteristics of ourselves. In my life, processing the trauma I've experienced through the filter of the Scorpio has been amazingly beneficial; I now look on it all as transformative, rather than destructive. 

It's also really interesting to give a name to the various inclinations and motivations for people's art or behaviors. Especially when you look at creative people, or really evil people, and you start seeing how many of them fit into a certain astrological sign, or element. It may not be scientifically proven, but that’s the sort of mystery and liminality that we derive meaning from.

I am a scientific person. I believe that reason, empirical evidence, and research is important. I live with a chronic illness, and I'm a health writer as a day job. It's important to me that information is disseminated accurately, or, say, that the injections I take have been proven both effective and safe, and that sometimes, you need medication over meditation, in order to heal.

At the same time — people need to know there’s more to health and wellness than big pharma. And there’s more to this world than what we can see. I think the zodiac allows us to approach the liminal, the intuitive, the subterranean. It does exist outside of 'objective science' and that's okay. It allows us to dive headfirst into the shadows of this world and our lives, and I think that's the key to the feeling whole — straddling both sides. Science has a place, but so does the esoteric. You can't prove love, but we all feel it. So, it's the same thing. Some things we just explore knowing that it may be obscure. I am grateful to be able to take part in the world from both stances. 

What do you think about how people can use the zodiac as a healing tool, or in daily ritual?

There more to this world than what we can see. I think the zodiac allows us to approach the liminal, the intuitive, the subterranean. It exists outside of 'objective science' and that's okay. It allows us to dive headfirst into the shadows of this world and our lives, and I think that's the key to the feeling whole — straddling both sides. Science has a place, but so does the esoteric. You can't prove love, but we all feel it. — LISA MARIE BASILE

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Sunday afternoons at home. 📸 by @michaelsterling

A post shared by Andi Talarico (@anditalarico) on Apr 7, 2019 at 10:18am PDT

ANDI TALARICO: I definitely look through several horoscopes during the morning to see what my day/week might bring me. I mean, the basis of horoscopes are transits, what the movement of the current celestial journey means in my zodiac placements, and I love that about horoscopes — how it's a constant reminder that everything changes, nothing stays still, and how cyclical life can be, for good or bad.

I like to look to the planets/celestial bodies and their assigned western astrological associations for greater personal meeting. Like, what does it mean to be represented, as I am, by the Moon? The Moon shines because it reflects the light that is given to it. I feel the same way, again, for good and bad. I also shine brightest when I'm basking in the the light of stimulating conversation and affection. I turn inward and dark when I'm not given light to work with.

Also, since the Moon transits more often than other bodies, since it's constantly waxing or waning, it serves as a beautiful remind to keep pushing forward, that this moment isn't forever, to enjoy the view and perspective before it changes yet again. It's why I have a little crescent moon tattooed on my finger — my constant reminder that the only constant is change.

How do you feel connected or represented by Pluto, Lisa? Pluto is such a symbolically important planet of creative destruction, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that!

What does it mean to be represented, as I am, by the Moon? The Moon shines because it reflects the light that is given to it. I feel the same way, again, for good and bad. I also shine brightest when I'm basking in the the light of stimulating conversation and affection. I turn inward and dark when I'm not given light to work with. — ANDI TALARICO

LISA MARIE BASILE: Oh, that’s so beautiful! When you say, “I turn inward and dark when I'm not given light to work with,” I feel that in my core! I love the idea of this cosmic duality, how it represents the shadowy quietude and the display of light. It reminds me that we are all just star stuff. It’s why I started Luna Luna! 

It’s funny you mention the tattoo, because I have one that also reminds me that things change; it’s an ampersand. Maybe that’s why you and I are so drawn astrology? That it provides a foundation we can find stability in but the fluidity we need to always be growing.

I think the fact that Pluto has been considered a planet, a not-planet, an exoplanet and whatever else, is very beautiful—a perfect and living representation of Pluto as a symbol: it dies and is reborn, and yet it remains this beautiful archetype of transformation, weathering the storms of idea and rule and order. Could literally anything be more perfect? 

Pluto is my beautiful ruler, and I am indebted to its reminders. I have always been able to die and rise. I lean into the dark and then I die. I go into dark periods of change and emerge. I almost need it more than the light. But I suppose, that is my language. The darkness becomes a kind of light that makes sense. 

I think that’s the beauty of this cosmic story. No matter what you believe or feel skeptical about, astrology’s narrative, symbolism and reminder to explore the grandness of human emotion and circumstance is all splayed out up there. We just need to look up. 

What do you think about people who say they they believe in astrology and make Huge Life Decisions around it? Do you think it’s important to figure astrology into your day to day? Jobs? Dates? Etc? Or do you think it serves its best purpose as a tool for introspection, rather than a rulebook?

No matter what you believe or feel skeptical about, astrology’s narrative, symbolism and reminder to explore the grandness of human emotion and circumstance is all splayed out up there. We just need to look up. — LISA MARIE BASILE

ANDI TALARICO: LOVE this: "...Pluto as a symbol: it dies and is reborn, and yet it remains this beautiful archetype of transformation, weathering the storms of idea and rule and order. "

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wandering the streets, finding magic in Spanish taverns and wooden bars and long conversations and hanging flowers 💐 camera 📷 by either @lifestudies or @anditalarico

A post shared by lisa marie basile (@lisamariebasile) on Apr 15, 2019 at 8:50am PDT

As for me, I don't make huge life decisions based on astrology in the sense, that, say, I won't work with people of certain signs or judge them based on their natal chart. The idea of not dating this sign or that sign is a prejudice to me, and unfair. Even knowing someone's chart information is an act of intimacy — that's private knowledge — and to use it against someone or to think you know everything about a person based on it...hell no. Absolutely not.

Can it help you locate potential challenges? Yes, I believe that. Is is exciting when your synastry is in alignment and looks positive? Of course. But we're all much more than our natal charts. We're our upbringing, we're our ancestors, we're survivors, we're our good days and bad days, we're what we've been allowed to be and what we've rebelled against. Our zodiac signs matter but they don't make or break us.

I WILL make decisions based on transits and the moon's phases, though. Like, new beginnings during the new moon — that just makes sense to my entire being, both my physical and spiritual self. I definitely believe in harnessing the new energy at the start of a new zodiac phase — focus on good communication at the start of Gemini season! Make those spreadsheets in honor of Virgos everywhere! Get real sexy at Scorpio time!

But, would I, say, not send an important email when Mercury's in Retrograde? No, I try not to rely THAT heavily on astrology. I try to use it more as a guide and tool for learning than a strict rulebook. But...I also hate rules and authority in general. I naturally bristle against those who think they have the exact answers, at least in areas that don't involve exactitude and true yes or no areas. I'm a skeptical human, in many ways.

Is is exciting when your synastry is in alignment and looks positive? Of course. But we're all much more than our natal charts. We're our upbringing, we're our ancestors, we're survivors, we're our good days and bad days, we're what we've been allowed to be and what we've rebelled against. Our zodiac signs matter but they don't make or break us. — ANDI TALARICO

FANCY THE COSMOS, WINE, AND A COZY CONVERSATION BETWEEN FRIENDS? LISTEN TO THE ASTROLUSHES PODCAST HERE

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Christine Shan Shan Hou In Conversation With Vi Khi Nao

BY VI KHI NAO
in conversation with CHRISTINE SHAN SHAN HOU

VI KHI NAO: How would you describe your poetry and your art (collage)? Do they seem similar to you? How close do you feel to Dadaism? Is there a particular literary movement or artistic movement you wish had been invented? 

CHRISTINE SHAN SHAN HOU: I look at both my poems and my collages like miniature worlds—each filled with their own characters, tastes, textures, and elements of strangeness and love. However, I actually feel like my poetry and collage are quite different from one another; my poetry—specifically the process of writing poetry—feels heavier, darker, whereas my collages feel lighter and more directly pleasurable. Writing poetry is hard. Collaging is fun. I don’t feel particularly close to Dadaism. I remember studying them in college and being very excited at first, but now I look at them and think: Look at all those old white men! Now that we’ve seen the first image of the black hole, I wonder: What would movement look like in a black hole?

VKN: Your collection, Community Garden For Lonely Girls, shows that you have a natural linguistic impulse to produce words/thoughts that mirror each other—as if you were trying to use the rhetoric of repetition to create content by allowing it to erase itself through doubling. For example, lines such as “my ancestors’ ghosts have ghosts” (p.3), “my split ends have split ends” (p. 4), “If I lay here, how long will I lay here?” (p. 18), “Act without acting out” (p.54), etc. Do you prefer sentences/lines that never look at each other or always look at each other? 

When you write these lines, I think that your poetry uses symmetry as a way to acknowledge the lexical self they haven’t been able to access; when a particular word repeats itself in the same context, it brings something out. What do you hope to bring out? In each other, meaning poetry and yourself. 

CSSH: I love this question, this image, of two sentences/lines looking at each other. It brings to mind an artwork by the Korean artist, Koo Jeong A. She made this one piece called Ousss Sister (2010) where two projections of the full moon are facing each other within a very narrow space. It is so bewildering, this concept of a self without eyes looking at one’s self. Is this still considered “looking” if one can’t see? Does one have to have eyes in order to have a face? I prefer sentences that look at each other, even though my sentences don’t always have eyes. Meaning arises from the act of looking. Repetition ensures its existence. Where there is existence, there is possibility bubbling beneath the surface. When I repeat words within sentence structures I am suggesting a possibility. A possibility for what? I don’t know.

When people read my poetry their hair grows a little longer. 

VKN: That is a mesmerizing image from Koo Jeong A. It reminds me of a pair of lungs. If your collages and your poems were to arm-wrestle each other and the yoga instructor/practitioner in you was forced to be the ultimate referee, who would win that tournament? And, ideally, which two aesthetic competitors would you like to see compete with each other in a match? Would you prefer to be the cheerleader or the umpire? If the winner between the two mentioned competitors (collages & poems) is the one who is able to break a reader/viewer’s aesthetic heart the fastest, which one would it be? 

CSSH: My collages would definitely win! My visual art feels lighter and not so bogged down by my past, by my thoughts, or by the heaviness of the language in the air! When I make collages, I am often listening to a podcast, or music, or have a tv show on in the background, all of which feels good for my brain, whereas when I am writing poetry, I can’t have any other distractions. I have to be very in it. One could argue that this extreme awareness of the present when writing poetry seems more mindful than the multitasking of collaging, but ultimately for me, the collage process is much more enjoyable, and the yoga instructor in me will lean towards the direction of joy. I think my collages would break the reader/viewer’s aesthetic heart the fastest. 

I would love to see film go head-to-head with any form of live art. 

VKN: Why do you want your readers’ hair to grow a little longer? I would hope it would grow shorter, to defy the law of gravity or the law of expansion. 

CSSH: Honestly, I don’t know why! It was just an image that floated into my head. I think it’s because I equate growing hair to growing older, which also means growing calmer. 

VKN: You are currently a poetry professor at Columbia. Do you enjoy teaching? Would you ever play a prank on your students? If so, what would be one prank that would bring out your impishness? What collage of yours or poem of yours would be a great example of a prank? What poem or collage of yours (or someone else’s) would be equivalent to this prank? And, what is the best way for a student of the arts or in general to express rebellion?    

CSSH: I do enjoy teaching. It is very invigorating to be in a room with young people who are as excited by poetry as me! However, to be honest, I prefer teaching yoga over teaching poetry. I’m not much of a prankster, but the poem that is closest to a prank is “Masculinity and the Imperative to Prove it” in Community Garden For Lonely Girls

That prank is very funny, but also mean. I think I’m too sensitive for pranks. I realize that makes me sound a little bit like a wet blanket, but I am ok with that. I think the best way for a student of the arts to express rebellion is to pursue the practice outside of the academic institution and at one’s own pace, whether that pace is a sprint or a crawl. 

VKN: I view pranks as one way or a tool an artist can use to express him or herself creatively in a comedic fashion. My brother sent me that prank at a sad point in my life, and it cheered me up and made me feel closer to him. I do not view it as a gesture of meanness, as in: shampoo is just shampoo and irritation is irritation and water running down one’s face excessively once every millennium is a divine act of profound charity. 

Speaking of visual or kinetic creativity, one can view your visual works on your Instagram: hypothetical arrangement. Can you talk about the piece below? Can you walk us through the process of how you created it? From seed of conception to final product? 

How often do you make your collages? I know you have one daughter, but in terms of sibling rivalry (how many of you are there, btw?), has poetry ever fought with you for creative space because you devote more time to one discipline or art form rather than another? You must understand scissors and surgical knives very well. Do you ever feel like you are a surgeon? Have you ever created a collage where you feel like you are performing a heart surgery and the life of this art piece heavily depends on how well you incise? Have you ever cut through the artery of an image and felt lost or lonely or regretful or sorrowful or overjoyed? 

CSSH: This collage is called “Self-actualization (in recline).” When I make collages I go through old magazines and start cutting out images that speak to me. I have several categories for images and three of them are: food, women, and seascape/landscape. I don’t remember how I arrived at this final image, but I remember liking the way the red flowers contrasted with the dreary, soft slices of bread and then the ease of the woman’s posture. I like her shimmering periwinkle outfit and her pet bird in the background.

I try to make at least one collage a week, but that doesn’t always happen. I tend to make many collages in a short period of time, or even in one sitting, and then occasionally mess with them for a few minutes every few days, until I feel satisfied with them. 

I am one out of four siblings. However I do not see any “sibling rivalry” between poetry and my yoga and/or collage practice. I think they all work in harmony with one another and give each other the time and space to breathe.

Yes! I definitely feel like a surgeon when I am making collages. I use an x-acto knife so I can really get into the details. And there are so many pieces I’ve considered “ruined” or “dead” because I was too impatient with the cutting of a very precise detail. But then I immediately let it go. I try not to get too precious about paper arteries. 

VKN: Will you break down the poem “A History of Detainment” (p. 72) or (“Masculinity and the Imperative to Prove it,” or why this poem may feel pranky to you) from your collection, Community Garden For Lonely Girls, for us, Christine? Can you talk about the process of writing that poem? Do you recall writing it? What was it like? Where were you emotionally? Intellectually? Were you preparing a meal? On a train? Or what piece of writing/art inspired it? Did it take you long? And, could you talk to us about this line: “While navigating the meadow of hypotheticals, I tripped and broke my arm” (p.72). If you broke your arm, what one line from a canonized poet would you want to scribble on your cast? 

CSSH: “A History of Detainment” is so long and heavy and my brain is so tired after a full day of running around with my kid. But I can say a little bit about “Masculinity and the Imperative to Prove It”: When I was a child, my grandparents owned a Chinese restaurant called Oriental Court inside of a New Jersey shopping mall. Every Saturday night my entire paternal family—grandparents, all of their children and all of their children's children—would eat dinner after the mall's closing hours. After the meal, me, my siblings, and my cousins would run around like crazed little people in the empty mall and play all sorts of games including: "Red Light Green Light," "Red Rover," "What Time is it Mr. Fox?" and "Mother May I."

However, the golden rule was that we had to wait at least thirty minutes after eating before engaging in any physical activity, or you would get sick. When I was a young girl, I was often ashamed of my body. I used to wish that I were white so that I could fit in with the popular crowd; I would make myself throw up because I thought I was fat; and because I was sick a lot as a child, I would view my medical issues as a reflection of moral shortcomings. In other words, I was a very sad child. But at the end of the poem, the sad child is actually a fish. And we all know that a salad can be both a curse and a blessing. 

VKN: That’s a very beautiful story, Christine. I understand your tiredness. Perhaps this last question then: What do you think is the best way for one poet to feel at home in a poetry collection by another poet?

CSSH: Poetry collections are like homes unto themselves. I think the best way for a poet to feel at home in someone else’s poetry collection is by taking their time while reading it and listening closely, attentively, to what it is trying to say.

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Christine Shan Shan Hou is a poet and visual artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Publications include Community Garden for Lonely Girls (Gramma Poetry 2017),“I'm Sunlight” (The Song Cave 2016), and C O N C R E T E  S O U N D (2011) a collaborative artists’ book with Audra Wolowiec. She currently teaches yoga in Brooklyn and poetry at Columbia University. christinehou.com

VI KHI NAO is the author of Sheep Machine (Black Sun Lit, 2018) and Umbilical Hospital (Press 1913, 2017), and of the short stories collection, A Brief Alphabet of Torture, which won FC2’s Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize in 2016, the novel, Fish in Exile (Coffee House Press, 2016), and the poetry collection, The Old Philosopher, which won the Nightboat Books Prize for Poetry in 2014.  Her work includes poetry, fiction, film and cross-genre collaboration. Her stories, poems, and drawings have appeared in NOON, Ploughshares, Black Warrior Review and BOMB, among others. She holds an MFA in fiction from Brown University.