The new poetics of confession
Then halfway through the poem the speaker reports what happened on another day: “I woke up at 8 a.m. to pull the Band-Aid off of my shot.” The poems goes on to confront and confess the feeling of death in life. Where the speaker’s body feels like someone has sliced his/her throat and left the body “behind a dumpster in January” but they are still alive and feeling it. The last line of the poem ends with yet another time on perhaps the same day. The speaker factually reports: “I have to meet my mother for lunch at 10 a.m.”
Marcus Slease reviews Gabby Gabby’s poetry collection Airplane Food.
The Missing Links
The lure of the writer’s cabin. * The literary kingdom of Redonda. * Greg Baxter interviewed. * It’s a Bad Brains Christmas, Charlie Brown. * An interview with Christine Schutt on Bookworm. * Against architecture. * Nothing will have taken place. * Desperately seeking Susan Sontag. * Why Thai women cut off their husbands’ penises. […]
Sky Up
Some parties are forgettable, Alyssa says, how many parties have we had this week. She turns on the bathroom faucet but does not wash her hands or look down, staring at herself casually in the mirror, listening to the water. Her big lips crack as they smile. If you’ve been through hell, keep going, she says. Alyssa feels the edge of the sharp blade of her pocket knife with her thumb, and winces just before it breaks the skin, before she hears a knock on the door. She walks outside still holding the knife. She walks a straight line in one direction, because direction is consoling, softening her focus, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her other hand before descending downstairs. The person in the front of the line, waiting for the bathroom, a girl wearing a bikini, says, Winston Churchill. The girl in a bikini says, That girl walking away holding the knife is quoting Winston Churchill.
By Richard Chiem.