Hot Girls Get Published Summer
Greetings! With the “lost weekend” behind us now, let’s return back to reality. It’s Hot Girls Get Published summer!
The last few months I’ve been in the trenches, submitting poetry to a bunch of journals and presses. I’m happy to say that I got quite a few acceptances among the rejections! I’ve been making new friends along the way – such as nat raum editor-in-chief of fifth wheel press – as well as strengthening friendships such as that with Cade Miller. They are one of my best friends and I am happy to say that we have a poem out now on the engine (idling’s no. 9 entitled “Stroads”! We kinda developed a new form along the way, the stroad, which we came to define loosely as really long lines and autobiographical topoi based around suburban upbringing much like a “stroad” if you’re not familiar with the term. The poem, a dialogic poem based on our early adolescence, is available on e(i’s website here as a digital, free pdf and can also be purchased as a physical copy through Amazon’s KDP. Buyer beware! I also made an electronic collage piece, whose background is a real picture from all the back in 2014 – seeing on the grass, contemplating magic, and hanging out with fellow hooligans. The more things change, the more they remain the same!
nat raum and their team at fifth wheel press followed through on this most amazing idea to launch a microchapbook series for Pride month, releasing a new one every weekday of June. I’m pleased to have been the penultimate release – “the book of dame ærney”. It documents the life of a young trans girl lost somewhere in the annals of medieval romance. I was inspired by Middle English romances like Sir Orfeo, Emaré, and their queer/trans potentiality which has been rediscovered more and more by scholars as the years roll on. The fragmentary nature of the poem and its use of ‘intentional’ lacunae takes inspiration from medieval manuscripts themselves as well as contemporary trans poetry such as […] by ava hofmann and feeld by my friend, jos charles. I hope my neurodivergence shines through here. I did not try to mask it. This piece is a tribute to every trans girl who has dreamed of being a princess, faraway somewhere. It is a poem that has been edited by Rosie Accola and overseen once by Julian Talamantez-Brolaski. It is loosely based on experiences I had as a child and as an adult. I tried to swerve away from both the “princess needs a prince to save her” and the “princess saves herself in this one” tropes in order to project trans sapphic possibilities.
You can still download (and donate tips) “the book of dame ærney” here! If it's all the same, you can download my bundle and all the others, too! Please do!
Last (though certainly not least) would be my “Wulf & Eadwacer Dual Duplex”, my exploration of the fragmentary Old English poem “Wulf & Eadwacer” through the duplex form as pioneered by Jericho Brown. Fence (yes, THAT Fence) agreed to put this out for their no. 43. This has been a long time in the making, and I’m very excited to share the new issue will be arriving shortly in print! If you are not a print subscriber to Fence now, sign up and you’ll receive no. 43 including my poem shortly! Shouts out to W&E by M. L. Martin as well – whose book I only found out about after I written and submitted my own adaptation of "Wulf and Eadwacer”.
In the near future, some poems I’m really excited about will come out on the DC based Lilac Peril late summer or early autumn. Stay tuned!
Warmly
alice
