Charlie Blodnieks

photograph by Eliza Jouin

Interview by Yosan Alemu

Reading over the work you submitted to Ratrock, I really loved your Psalm For God’s Mother piece. If you would like to share, what inspired you to write it? How did you write it? Why?

The poem was actually my individual CUPSE poem from last year. So CUPSE is the College Union’s Poetry Slam Invitational the Barnard/Columbia slam team goes to every year. That poem was initially three minutes, and I performed it with other members on the team. My best friend Taylor Thompsonwas singing Moses Sumney’s “Plastic” while I performed the piece. I think that poem has a lot to do with the specific moments of my transition last year, which was around this exact time actually. I had just come out to my family as trans, and I just started requesting people use my correct pronouns. That was a really, for me, a coming into my own moment, my own self. I was thinking a lot about space, and how to request and demand space for yourself.

A large part of the poem also got me attached to Icarus imagery, of flying too close to the sun, especially in terms of space and proximity. I’m always really anxious about taking up too much space, and I felt very uncomfortable with asserting my gender identity and my transness—I had a lot of complicated feelings about it. I still do. The poem also dealt with my relationship with my family, and me announcing to them and the world that I can do these things on my own, I can transition on my own, I can do it myself. Even though there is a lot of sadness to it, there is also some power hidden within it. It might be quiet but still deeply comforting.