VIII. From Toys and Treats to Cages and Towers

I thought he said home
is other people. A gilt-edged
childhood, a currency
of tulips, a charm
of goldfinch, & so many
ravens— a conspiracy,
a constable, an unkindness
of. Too clever by half, we
invent it, & then
put it into practice.

VII. She Made a Place to Sleep Inside My Ear

The walls of the house have become
the world all around & everything
an excuse to do
nothing & she is fading
from the margins & we become
inconceivable to eachother.

Despite common appearance, our words
have roots in different sources. Exercises
in mis-reading. The way moths fly
like they’re broken.

VI. Believe What I Tell

She lives in a cave haunted
by the ghost of a giant
fox. She answers
questions in cryptic
verse & her answers
are always true:

Feathers, flowers,
sticks & stones. You can
grab my skin but
you’ll never get
my bones.

words, notes, noise, inappropriate laughter, trial and error

Date: Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Time: 7:30-10pm
Location: Wineo Bar & Restaurant, 447 Poplar Street
(N 5th & Poplar in Northern Liberties)

WOMEN WHO WRITE

Jenn McCreary: is the author of :ab ovo:, published by Dusie Press in the spring of 2009. She is also the author of two chapbooks: errata stigmata (Potes & Poets Press), & four o’clock pocket chiming (Beautiful Swimmer Press); the e-chapbook :Maps & Legends: (Scantily Clad Press) & a doctrine of signatures (Singing Horse Press). Her poetry has been published in magazines including Combo, Lungfull!, Tool: A Magazine, POM2, So To Speak, Sous Rature, Tangent, & How2. She lives with her husband, the writer Chris McCreary, & their twin sons in Philadelphia, where she co-edits ixnay press with Chris, works for the Mural Arts Program, & serves on the board of the Philly Spells Writing Center.

Mecca Jamilah Sullivan: is from Harlem, New York. Her fiction has appeared and is forthcoming in a number of journals and anthologies, including Callaloo, Crab Orchard Review, Best New Writing, Bloom, Philadelphia Stories, Lumina, Baby Remember My Name, X-24: Unclassified, Woman’s Work, Homeboy Review, and Baobab South African Journal of New Writing, as well as literary publications from Columbia, Yale, Temple, and Howard Universities. Her nonfiction prose has also appeared in GLQ, American Visions, and other publications. A 2006 Best New Voices nominee, her short story, “A Strange People,” received Crab Orchard Review’s 2008 Charles Johnson Fiction Award, and her short fiction manuscript, Blue Talk and Love, was named a finalist for the 2009 Sol Books Prose series award. Her short story, “Wolfpack,” was a shortlist finalist for the Eric Hoffer Award from Best New Writing, and her short story, “Blue Talk and Love,” was chosen by Rick Moody as the second-place winner of the American Short Fiction short story contest. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, and is working on her first novel.

Kim Gek Lin Short: is the daughter of a Scots-Irish geophysicist from the midwest and a Straits-Chinese tenpin champion from Singapore. She is the author of The Bugging Watch & Other Exhibits (Tarpaulin Sky Press), and the chapbooks The Residents (dancing girl press) and Run (Rope-a-Dope Press). Her next book, China Cowboy, will be published by Tarpaulin Sky Press in 2011. She lives with her family in Philadelphia.

V. Notorious Nest Raiders

After it happened, I
wanted to write
love letters to everyone
around me. But they ended
up being love letters
of doom. It was
too hot & too much
had happened. We
were silhouetted in the after
burn or afterglow.

IV. A Wild Sweet Rippling

A cautionary miss, cautionary
tale, all dressed up &
smelling of strangers, in the pines, in
the pines. He fondled her
anklebones, mistook her
hair entirely & caught, mid-
swarm, her shuttered face
bloomed.

He crowned her, poppies & pepper-
berry. Taught her to sleep
under trees, skirts spread, to trap
mythical beasts. Waiting
for anything is its own kind
of fever. Or undoing. Your slow
road to ruin.

III. Melodies Were Their Ammunition

In the forest the wolves
were small & there was
small music. If wolves are like
dogs, then. A cloud howling
to the moon, a wolf singing, a singing
wolf. High swing & belly
tickle. Fists full
of fur & we all fall.

II. Sometimes Pleasing, Sometimes Not

In a fairytale, when you
think you’re out of the woods
you’re not. I see a saw. Slide
the hide. Go round
the merry. Path
of needles, path
of pins.

I walked on knives
to get here & now
my feet are maps. In case
I forget. How
I got here.

Series in progress, written after the artwork of SJ Hart.

I. We Changed the Story, We Solved the Problem

These are the fables I reconstruct
as the birds sing
about the murder. Mystery
& then goodnight.

Remember, I too
am a monster. See here
my avatar of chaos.