An Interview with Shelley Valdez

AN INTERVIEW WITH SHELLEY VALDEZ

Back in February 2021, Poetry Editor Asela Lee Kemper sat down with poet Shelley Valdez on writing poems through poetry slam, love, and just being a total badass.

Asela L. Kemper (ALK): Tell me a little bit about yourself! How did you get into poetry?

Shelley Valdez (SV): Well, I guess I’ve been telling stories since I was a little kid. I didn’t know that I wanted to write poetry. When I was a little kid, my hero was Britney Spears. It was very silly. (Laughs) And then in the fourth grade, we had to write little books and my teacher was like, “Hey Shelley, you should be a writer! Did you ever think about that?” So from the fourth grade, I was like, “Oh! Well! I guess this is something I like. This is something I want to do.” I’m still in touch with that fourth grade teacher. Her husband is Gene Yang [writer and graphic novelist of critically acclaimed graphic novel, American Born Chinese and Avatar: The Last Airbender comic books]. He is super cool! He worked at my high school and the reason why I went to my high school was because of my fourth grade teacher. She said, “My husband works there! You know who he is. You should go!”

It was high school was when I really started writing poetry. I was part of the poetry club, it was called “Es Ateracals” They made little zines, had little poetry readings, or little days where you sit in little rooms and write poetry. That was when I really knew that this was something I wanted to do. I would carry a little notebook around and write little poems in them. I didn’t think I would want to do it forever, but it was something I really cared about. And then my junior year, I had to become the head of that poetry club because the head of the club graduated and was like, “You can do it! See ya!” I was like, “Well! I guess I will!”

And that’s what I did. It was a lot of fun. Around that time, I discovered this publishing house called, Write Bloody Publishing. Before then, I had been writing a lot of rhyming poetry because

I’d been reading sonnets and Shakespeare, whatever! I was like, “That’s what poetry is supposed to do!” But then I discovered this publishing house because I had gotten a Kindle and I could buy books of poetry. So I discovered other kinds of poetry, not poetry just have to rhyme and that you could do all sorts of things. To this day, Write Bloody Publishing is the place I dream of being published by because they publish spoken word poets— not always spoken word poets because I feel like there are poems that are meant to be on stage and poems are meant to be on the page and poems that could be both. I think they try to look for poets that do both. They have been my guiding lights for a long time, especially when I was kind of a depressed and suicidal high schooler. I feel like that was really the thing that… I don’t want to say that it saved my life because that’s really cheesy, you know? I mean, I tell that to any of those Write Bloody poets when I meet them because I met couple of them at AWP. Sometimes they will tour and I will make sure to go see them then say, “Hey, you saved my life” because I feel like poets need to hear it. Fiction authors can get it in their head, “Of course, my novel was great!” But poets, kind of, don’t get that as much. I’ve met more stuck-up fiction writers than stuck-up poets who are real poets. They don’t get enough appreciation! They often don’t realize that people walk around with their words in their head. You can never know just how many people still think about that one line you wrote that got posted on Tumblr or that they read it somewhere or that they saw you perform somewhere. So I always try to give poets some extra love because they need to hear it, I think, more than all the other writers. Maybe I’m a little biased but…

ALK: You’re speaking so much truth. You’re right! Poets, we don’t really hear [compliments] a lot. I hear stories of friends who say to the other poets like, “Oh my god, you’re amazing!” And they just start shriveling into this shell going, “Really?!” I totally understand that! And what’s so interesting from hearing your story is you were so encouraged at a young age from your teacher in fourth grade! You mentioned that you didn’t start writing poetry. What transitioned from what you originally started writing [fiction] to where you are right now?

SV: I think, eventually, I still want to write fiction. I started out writing stories, but I think it’s really gratifying to write a poem and then have something finished. I’ve worked on some poems for years, but if you can do that for a poem, could you imagine how you can do that for a novel or even a short story? I feel like there is something really gratifying about being able to finish something.

I liked poetry a lot in high school, but I think college is when I really decided that I was going to do it forever. Part of it was because I had really good professors and I got to take poetry classes and realized, “Oh, I can do this!” I’m getting really good feedback and I can grow. But I also eventually became the poetry editor of Santa Clara Review, which is where I went to college. I think being the poetry editor really put me in a place where I was reading a lot of poetry constantly and then also writing constantly and then meeting a lot of really good writers. We get to go to conferences like AWP and it was like a big dream! I got to sit at a booth and say, “Here!

Buy our magazine!” And also meet all these writers I never thought that I would get to meet or maybe wasn’t prepared to meet. I met Sarah Kay and Phil Kaye! They were so sweet! I think working for the Santa Clara Review made a big difference.

The poetry scene in Santa Clara and also in the South Bay and Sane Jose was a really big influence on me. There is a poet named Mike McGee, he goes by the name Mighty Mike McGee. He was the Santa Clara County Poet Laureate for a couple years before the current Poet Laureate who is a Filipina American which is super cool! Mike McGee was really influential for me because he was everyone’s beloved bearded uncle. If you were in the art scene in San Jose, you would know him! He fostered community and was always very kind and very generous. He is still dedicated to creating space for artists of all kinds especially poets and musicians. One of the poets was the editor-in-chief of the Santa Clara Review before I joined the team. He met Mike McGee at one of the art crawls in San Jose and he invited him to host our our poetry slams. I think it was just going to be a one time thing, but then eventually, I think, either the English department or the Santa Clara Review magazine would pay him to host those events. He would come in and host poetry slams. I would sometimes help organize the event. My friend was the one who really run it, but I would perform and make the flyers every time. I would doodle an octopus with a microphone or something. He would invite us to other open mics in the city and sometimes in coffee shops. The open mic that was really informative for me was called The Burning Tail. It was in this coffee shop that was also an art gallery. It was closed at the nights most of the time, but if The Burning Tail was happening, I think it happened once a month and it was open at night, musicians, poets, and comedians would perform. I remember I was a sophomore and I had a broken heart. I was afraid to go by myself and I didn’t have a car, so I Uber-ed there by myself. I didn’t even have a poem prepared! I just have this story of being harassed at work— I used to work at a book shop. I don’t know if you ever experienced this, but I really hate when white men will flirt with you but will flirt with you on your race! So I told this story off the top of my head of that experience I had with this random middle-aged white man bothering me at my job and how it felt. Honestly, I don’t think I did that great that first time, but I was so welcomed and embraced. I was like 18 or 19? And all these great poets, comedians, all these artists were like, “Come again! Keep coming! We love you! That was great! Do it again!”

So I did! Over the course of my college career, I had a space that was safe but also challenged me to bring my best work. There would be other really great artists and I would want to live up to that. I would want to live up to being one of The Burning Tail artists. The Burning Tail doesn’t happen anymore, for now, because the coffee shop did end up having to close. It was really sad, but they [all of the artists] had like a funeral reception for it and had a big swung, swung party where everyone gave their final performances. I did one about the end of the earth and it was really sweet. I miss it very much, but I think that it was exactly the kind of space I needed. I’m still interested in poetry slams, but in order to cultivate your work, it’s important, as a performer, to go beyond wanting to perform for a score. I think in poetry slams, because you’re performing for a score, that kind of is overwhelming and that hinder you also. I recently learned

this from another poet named Jeremy Rayden. I just got out of a workshop with Derek Brown, who is the head of Write Bloody Publishing. He [Brown] had Jeremey Rayden come in as a guest and he said, “Your job as a poet if you’re going to perform your poem isn’ to obey the conventions of poetry performances and it isn’t to perform for a score. It’s to communicate what you have to say in the best way you can. In the way that YOU can do it and in a way that is most appropriate for the poem.” So if your poem is about a secret or a secret moment, it’s okay if you lean into the microphone and whisper the poem to us as if you’re telling a secret. Or if you’re speaking about joy, the way you speak about joy would be the way you would perform the poem. If you’re telling a story, it’s okay to tell the story like you’re in a barn in Philadelphia, smoking cigarettes. You do the thing the way that you can do the thing and in the way that is most appropriate for the work that you did. I think that’s not always possible at a slam because that’s not the priority. But my favorite kind of performances when that IS the priority! And you are in a room with people who appreciate art and you do your best.

ALK: Hearing your story makes me miss performing in poetry slams! When I heard you read your poems at the Chopsticks Alley Pinoy Art Gallery, it was amazing! It just resonates and hits you in the heart, you know? It’s so honest. You’re not afraid to be honest and that’s what I appreciate about your work. I even read your poems and I actually have my favorites— I read one from Santa Clara Review! It takes my breath away. I also found out that your poem was featured in poets.org, which so—you’re such a badass!

SV: Oh, thank you! (Laughs)

ALK: There is one poem, ENGKANTO. I want you to talk more about that poem as well as Love and Other Fire Hazards because that poem seems like…there is a certain style that, I don’t say this a lot, only certain writers can pull off and I feel like you were able to pull off because there were so many breaks in those styles that it needs those pauses to be there to let it sink in. I have a follow-up question which is, for those who are poets and are still searching for their style or their voices, how did you, in your experience, able to find a style or a way to write your poems that says, “This is who I am”?

SV: For ENGKANTO, I wanted to retell one of my favorite Filipino fairytales. So that was the premise for the poem. And the structure is called a pecha kucha. I don’t know if he invented it, but the first time I saw a pecha kucha was from this poet called Terrence Hayes. He has a book called, Lighthead that I read in, I think, one of my first poetry classes in college. I think a pecha kucha is a presentation style that was created in Japan, where they have 30 powerpoint slides and you have 30 seconds to talk about each one. It’s supposed to be like a quick presentation and so he was so inspired by that and turned it into a poem format. It might be 30 or 20… I don’t remember, but that was what he did in couple of his poems. If you look up “Terrance Hayes a

pecha kucha,” you can find one of his poems. That was the format that inspired me to write ENGKANTO because I wanted to retell the fairytale. But I didn’t know if I wanted to just write as a short story. I wanted to turn it into a poem and the format give me that because I can write sections of the story into sections of the poem that each had their own little title. That’s how I did that! The poem is based on the fairytale of how the banana tree came about in the Philippines — supposedly. I remember, I think it was in the 5th grade, where we had to find some sort of folklore that was related to our culture. I live in California, I live in the East Bay— I guess now I live in the South Bay but I went to a little Catholic school and there were a lot of Filipino children. I was very lucky in that way, I guess. A lot of us looked up Filipino fairytales and my favorite one was about the story of the banana tree. It was about a human girl falling in love with an Engkanto, a forest spirit. They fall in love and before he dies, he either gives her his heart or his hands. There were multiple versions but that’s what he does. And so she plants either his heart or his hands and that turns into the banana tree. […] Supposedly, that’s the origin of the banana tree. That’s whole point of the fairytale. They had this lovely love story and before he dies, he gave her an essential part of himself. She buried it and it turned into a tree, a tree that is now very beloved and we all benefit from. We all have eaten a banana in our lives. (Giggles)

I wrote that poem to retell the fairytale and also to feel closer to my culture.

I think I sometimes worry about how easy it is for people of color to get pigeonholed into like “ethnic” poetry or “ethnic” fiction, you know what I mean? But then other nondenominational art gets to be considered as high art. I think about how many writers have been sidelined because of that. Or how we only have small number of, I don’t want to call it ethnic literature but, literature written by people of color. When we think of the great writers, how many are them are people of color. I dream is to bridge the gap, I guess. I want you all to know that I’m a queer Filipino American writer but I’m also a WRITER. Consider me for both! I am both!

ALK: I totally understand that, which actually transition to this next question: as someone who is Filipina in the literary world where Filipinx and Filipinx American representation is very difficult to find, how do you navigate yourself as a writer of color?

SV: I guess, in some ways, I feel like… the journey is just the beginning. I’m sure going to find a lot more difficulty, but I haven’t had to deal too much prejudice. But I got lucky that I was kind of a big fish in a small pond at Santa Clara and also in high school. Every time you have to forge a path in another space, you have to start all over again. In high school, I knew everyone and then in college I have to re-know everyone. I have to keep re-inventing myself or reasserting myself. I think, I don’t know, the way I navigate is to just be myself. If I experience difficulty, it

doesn’t really change my goal and it doesn’t really change who I am. Obviously, I’ve experienced racism. But I don’t think it’s been like a huge part of my experience as a writer. Maybe I’m just lucky in that way. I’m sure that it’s out there and maybe I just don’t know about people being weird about things. I think that my mission is to be myself in the best way I can be. Write my truth in the best way I can and I think if I do that, that’s inevitably both a reflection of a universal human experience but also my specific human experience and also the experience of being queer and experience of being a Filipino American. It is very specific! Like if someone were to say, “go back to where you came from,” where I came from is fucking California. And if I went to the Philippines, and I have been to the Philippines, they can smell America on you. It’s not like you could ever really simulate back there. You’ll always be in between. It’s a beautiful place but also a painful place. I will never be Filipino enough in the Philippines because I’m American and I’ll never be American enough because I’m not white. It’s a touchy subject but it’s also the truth. It is a constant in-between space. There is always going to be parts of myself that rub against each other and bleed, irrevocable parts. I can’t stop being Catholic or Filipino or queer, but all of those things are interconnected. And they don’t like each other, but I have to carry it around with me! It was a lot worse in high school and the crisis is never averted, it just changes. I also change and I also grow. I find different ways of carrying those pains and parts of my identity with me. Luckily, writing is a way I can do that. I guess that’s how I navigate my Filipino American woman identity! I live it, I write about it, and I try to be my most authentic self in my writing.

Also as I meet people, as I interact with other writers, I think that’s the most important thing. I guess that also answers your question about developing your voice. I think, really, read a lot and write a lot. And you experiment. I think it’s a good place to start, to be inspired by writers that you like. I like Terrance Hayes, so I wrote a poem and was inspired by his poem format. It was still my poem, but it was a good place to start. Eventually, it became also mine. Not just me copying him. I like certain cadences of some poets. I think, overall, we’re all of course special and unique but we’re also all amalgamations of everything we ever loved and everything we’ve ever encountered and consumed. I feel that way about all of the poetry I’ve read and I also feel that way about fucking Sailor Moon, you know! I feel like the media I loved as a kid raised me just as much as my parents did. That might be a cheesy thing to say, but I remember watching Dragon Ball when I was 5 or 6. Goku has this little cloud that he rides on, but only the pure-ofheart can ride on the cloud. I remember being a kid and being like, “I wanna to be pure-of-heart, so then I can ride on the cloud!” That part of me that wants to be worthy of the cloud has not gone away. My mom and Catholicism maybe influenced that, but also fucking Goku?!

Those are all irrevocable and important. They live in myself and they’ll also live in my writing.

You also asked about the poem Love and Other Fire Hazards? My friends and I had a running joke that was “love is a scam until you’re in it.” And then I was in it. (Laughs)

I’m pansexual and I like people regardless of gender. That was very hard to find out in high school when my first love was a girl and one of my best friends. It was weird because I fought so hard to be like “this is me.” I had to come to terms with that, I guess. But the three times where I’ve been really in love was once with a girl, once with a non-binary person, and once with a boy. So I’m like, “Well, at least I still collected the whole set.” (Laughs) But yeah, that poem was about him and coming to terms with finally having the really good love that I longed for.

Do you know the song “Nobody” by Mitski?

ALK: Uh, I know “No One” by Alicia Keys.

SV: Well, that’s also a really good song! But I recommend you listen to Mitski because she really, fully knows that Asian American woman experience and she’s like, “Guess what? I’m going to scream about it and you’re gonna cry!” (Laughs)

But I was so deeply lonely. I was just so convinced that I was always going to be the kind of person who would be the one giving love forever and not receiving it. Or I would end up being the one who loved more. That’s what I thought would happen. I had been in love, at that time twice before the third big time. I think, part of it, was I wanted love immensely because, you know everyone wants love. Romantic or otherwise, everyone wants to be loved, to be known, and to have a companion. Life is hard! We need companions! We’ve evolved this far and, I don’t know, I guess humans are the apex predators but we got here because we have fucking friends! Because we had family! We made connections that last long term. I don’t think they were meant to be truly alone. But I was in a place where, no matter how much I wanted and no matter how much I maybe please God I deserve it, it still might not happen. I had gone to the point where I was going to make peace with this. And my grandma died and she was the person I loved the most in the world. I personally think Filipinos love their grandparents. I feel like, I don’t know maybe I’m biased but, I love the shit out of my grandparents and it wasn’t just me. It was we all really love them. I feel like in other cultures or other families maybe grandparents are more of distant figures. It’s not always an immense, intense relationship because maybe you don’t see them that often or they live in another state or another country. For us, my mom was the youngest of eight and I had a lot of cousins, a lot of aunts and uncles, and very, very loving grandparents and I was very well loved. When she [her grandma] died, I lost the person I loved the most. I was too distracted by this grief to worry about being so romantically alone. And then in the amidst of that grief, I met my person. It was very strange! I mean obviously of course I wish I could have both of them but, it was like God made a little exchange, “I know now that the person you love the most can’t be on the same, plain of existence as you, but… here’s this!”

And so… yeah! I got to have that and I still have that! I think I’m… I don’t know how to exist without being overwhelmed and I feel things really deeply. I’m always afraid of being a burden on someone. I feel like sometimes it’s easy to only let people see the magical part of me, especially as a poet. It’s like I’ll show up and I’ll be super nice. I’ll read you or perform this poem and you’re like, “wow! What a magical human!” I get too afraid to let you get close enough to see that I also hurt deeply. Like I’m afraid to ask for help sometimes. Part of it is just what happens when you ask for help from the wrong person and that’s not your fault and not even their fault, really. If someone doesn’t have the emotional capacity to hold you in a way that you need to, you can’t fully blame them but you also can’t blame yourself. You have to forgive every party because it’s no one’s fault but the pain of the experience still exists, it still follows you around. You’re still like, “can I ask anyone for help? Can I open up to anyone even if I wanted to so bad? Can I have this real, nourishing intimacy that I want to give and receive?”

And when I had it, I panicked a little. I was like, “Are you sure? I’m fire hazard! Are you fucking sure?” But it’s been four year, so I guess he was sure. (Laughs) So that was what the poem was about. It was acknowledging the worthiness for love. Acknowledging that it had arrived and that I am still all of the things. Sometimes I am still scared of all of the things that I am, but also what’s happening is real. I guess it’s not supposed to be a poem about eternal love, but it’s just about accepting that I am worthy of love and there’s this person who does loves me despite… I don’t know I’m a scream on legs.

ALK: Reading that and ENGKANTO, there is a growth in your poems. There is this level of growth just… your views on love, even through your inktober— I was scrolling through your Instagram— there’s so much emotion towards love. It’s so upfront and there is so much going on but in the most beautiful way. That’s what I love about your work. It’s not only honest, but it’s emotional to talk about love. Listening to your story, it just makes me feel proud to be a poet.

SV: KEEP GOING ASELA! YOU’RE GREAT!

ALK: OH MY GOD YOU’RE SO COOL.

SV: (Laughs)

ALK: I know you touched on this earlier but what advice do you have for folks who are interested in getting into poetry or just want to start performing in slams?

SV: Well, I think before going to slams, I really recommend going to open mics. The pressure is way off because you’re not getting a score and it’s not about winning or losing. It’s about sharing. I think that’s a perfect place for you to cultivate who you are as a performer. I would say find a community that feels safe and welcoming but also has other writers that you respect. Try to get into that scene. Most likely they’re going to be kind. Maybe I definitely got lucky, but definitely open mics are a really good place even with just your friends. But I think what’s important is surrounding yourself with people who are welcoming but also good writers. You need both. And then naturally, if you do get into slams, getting into open mics first will lead you there eventually. I think another thing would be attending slams, attending really good slams. Don’t jump in right away because it can be intimidating. And as I said, read a lot. Write a lot. Don’t be afraid to suck. Suck first and then go back and work on it! I also think it’s really important to finish things. I definitely have to take this advice myself. I’ve had drafts of poems, what I do is have a draft of a poem and sometimes I’m too afraid to delete stuff forever. So what I’ll do is I’ll copy the poem and then I’ll have a page break and go one page above that draft. So, at the bottom is draft one and then at the top of the document is draft ten. It slowly building on each other so I don’t lose anything and then I can go back be like, “Oh that sucked. I’m glad that I cut it out.” Or I can go back and be like, “Why did I cut that out? Good thing I saved it in this here document so I can bring it back.” Have as many drafts as you want, but also try and finish things. I think having a goal of finishing it is the most productive way to get your writing where it needs to be. Finish it but be willing to take good feedback and be willing to go back on it. For me, I feel like a poem is fully finished finished if it got published somewhere. Or if I’m gonna put it in, one day, my debut collection when it’s in there that’s the version. For me, I can get stuck just in the draft of the poem and it is fully, truly draft because there are all these places where I’m like something needs to be here but I don’t know what it is. Or if it doesn’t have an ending. Sometimes, I’ll have the title of the poem. I feel like I got the reverse curse because some people will write a poem and not know what to call it. But for me, often, I get a title of the poem and then I’m like, “Well… what’s it about?” Some people don’t know how to end it. I also struggle with endings but sometimes I’ll have the last line and I’m like, “Well how do I get here? How do I make this make sense?”

I think it’s good to get all sorts of encouragement. Obviously, your mom who isn’t a writer is gonna be like, “Wow, good job.” And sometimes you need someone to fucking tell you, “Wow, good job!” The process of writing can be really lonely, but you also need someone to say, “Hey, you don’t need this line.” You need someone to check you a little when you need to learn how to take it. Obviously, some people just write for themselves and that’s also valid and important and sacred. But if you want to write in a way where you want a lot of people to read it or a lot of other people to interact with your poem, then you have to finish things or at least working drafts of things. And then get eyes on it! Get trusted eyes on it. That’s one thing I missed from college that I can easily access trusted professors and I can be like, “Hey! What do you think of this poem?” And I knew that they wouldn’t be afraid to be like, “…work on it!” Also if they told me that it’s good, I trust it. You need that balance of trusted validation and trusted criticism. Slowly, I think, in that process you’ll develop knowing when to agree and disagree with the feedback. I

think that the question you need to ask yourself is did you do this on purpose? Because that’s what really sets really good artists above, I guess. That’s what really determines really good artists if they did something on purpose, if their choices were deliberate. If someone said “Hey, I don’t get this. Maybe you should cut it” but you know that’s actually the red hot center of the poem like you know this is what the poem is about, you don’t have to cut it but you have to make it better than. You have to make it more apparent that that’s the beating heart of the poem. That’s something you develop. You develop your own judgement and as you develop your own judgement you also develop your own voice. In the knowing of yourself, in the knowing of your writing.

ALK: What is next for you?

SV: After doing the workshop with Derek Brown who works for Writing Bloody, I was able to get a lot of that trusted criticism and trusted feedback. Talking to my partner also opened my eyes to realizing what I want to do next is maybe work on a manuscript and trying to get that published. I think, especially because I was living in my parents’ place for a while, I recently moved out and so all my time is mine. I wad able to start really putting more time into my art and into my writing. I was able to take a workshop and not be worried about showing at dinner on time with my mom or worrying about if she was lonely because I didn’t pray with her. My goal, at first, is to write poems and to get published in magazines. But I feel like if I really want to be in a place where I want to be, I have to have a book. So that’s what I want to do. I’m really beginning to work on that, going through my poems and seeing what I want in it. Looking through my half-finished poems—there are a lot of them—but now having motivation to try and finish them, trying to keep in touch with some of the cool people I met in my workshop. So then I could have those trusted eyes. So! Working on a manuscript and I realize if my mindset is write the fucking book, eventually I will have my other goal of having poems I can submit out to publications. So, it’s two bird one stone! But a bigger dream will get fulfilled in the end other than just having my poems in places even though I want to. I don’t want to only submit to magazines. I want to have my own book. Hopefully, I will submit that out to places [small presses] and we’ll see where the dream takes me!

ALK: I totally believe in you!

SV: I’m gonna work on it! So that’s the next step is to give it love and work and valuable time. I don’t know how long it will take, but that’s the next part of the dream that needs to happen.

ALK: Once you get that published, the manuscript, definitely let us know especially me. (Laughs) I’m going to close the interview with one more question and it is where can readers find you and support you?

SV: So far, I just have my art Instagram (@fire.hazards). That’s what I’ve got! One of these days I will put together a website that will have, hopefully, links to all the places where you can read my poems. Until then, I’ve got my art Instagram, I’ve got a poem published by Quiet Lightening, and I got a couple published by the Santa Clara Review. But that’s it for now!

Check out Shelley Valdez’s poems mentioned here including Love and Other Fire Hazards and ENGKANTO. Follow Shelley on Instagram for more of her art!

SNUG

by Adele Evershed

Snug / the warmth coming from the open oven / but even in the refuge of words / lurking violence / snug backward / g-u-n-s / so I speak the letter names / and the word deconstructs/ I will make my own words/ kafkamorph/ become a hawk moth / reddish brown body, fast, acrobatic / flitting backward over the long lines / trap-lining / coming back to the same ghost orchid / uncurling my tongue / drinking from a can of Pepsi with an overlong straw / and the sticky pools are just soda puddles / sparkling in the dying sunlight / I’ll swarm across the Channel / a lucky charm / wings effecting a haze in an English country garden / a possible imposter / mistaken for a humming bird / reminding them about the small things in life / like eating each day / and being safe and warm and / snug.

EATING LESSON by MJ Malleck

It’s noon, I’m hungry and we’re an hour from home. The car window is down, and this

strip mall, where the therapists’ office is hidden, smells great. Shawarma, curry, burgers. There’s

all-day eggs and bacon. My daughter raps the passenger window, and I quickly unlock,

embarrassed that she walked past, and I didn’t see it was her. Didn’t want to recognize the

angled cheekbones and bony wrists.

“Can we grab something for the drive?” I ask.

“What?” Her head is shaking, her face to her phone. “No, wait. I don’t know any of these

places.”

“Let’s just try one. They all seem busy. The locals know them.”

“Wait.” Google maps, full of red flags.

She scrolls, reads. I close the window.

“I don’t need a review for take-out.” My hangry voice.

She looks over at me, pinpricks of red on her pale cheeks. Points.

“That place thinks all lives matter.” Points. “That place steals tips from their employees.”

Points. “That place had two health violations this year.”

“Rats,” I say.

CONTRIBUTORS

Vanessa Hu (she/her) is an avid latte-sipper, occasional ballroom dancer, and serendipitous writer. She has been published in Doublespeak Translation Magazine and The Wave Asian Arts Magazine, with work forthcoming in Corporeal and Bullshit Lit. She studies Computer Science and English at Harvard University, and you can find her ruminations on Twitter @vanessahwrites.

Tiel Aisha Ansari is a Sufi warrior poet. Her work has been featured by Fault Lines Poetry, Windfall, KBOO and an Everyman’s Library anthology, among others. Her collections include Knocking from Inside, High-Voltage Lines, Country Well-Known as an Old Nightmare’s Stable, The Day of My First Driving Lesson, and Dervish Lions (forthcoming from Fernwood Books). She works as a data analyst for the Portland Public School district and is president emerita of the Oregon Poetry Association. She hosts the Wider Window Poetry show on KBOO Community Radio, https://www.kboo.fm/program/wider-window-poetry Visit her online at knockingfrominside.blogspot.com

Yue Chen studies politics, economics, and literature. She is an editor at Sine Theta Magazine. Her work has been recognized by the Academy of American Poets and Bridport Arts Centre, among others. Her Twitter is @togekisskiss.

Martin Breul currently lives and writes in Montréal. His works of poetry and flash fiction have appeared in print and online in Wet Grain, The Wild Word, The Riverbed Review, Speculative Books, The Honest Ulsterman, and others. In 2021 he received the Mona Elaine Adilman Poetry Prize at McGill University. He Tweets @BreulMartin.

Alex Carrigan (@carriganak) is an editor, writer, and critic from Virginia. He has had fiction, poetry, and literary reviews published in Quail Bell Magazine, Lambda Literary Review, Empty Mirror, Gertrude Press, Quarterly West, Whale Road Review, 'Stories About Penises' (Guts Publishing, 2019), 'Closet Cases: Queers on What We Wear' (Et Alia Press, 2020), 'ImageOutWrite Vol. 9,' and 'Last Day, First Day Vol. 2.' He is also the co-editor of Please Welcome to the Stage...: A Drag Literary Anthology with House of Lobsters Literary.

Adele Evershed is an early years educator and writer. She was born in Wales and has lived in Hong Kong and Singapore before settling in Connecticut. Her prose and poetry has been published in a number of online and print journals such as Every Day Fiction, Free Flash Fiction, LEON Literary Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, High Shelf, Hole In The Head Review, Monday Night Lit, Eclectica Magazine, Tofu Ink Arts Press, Wales Haiku Journal, Shot Glass

Journal, Sad Girls Club and Green Ink Poetry among others. Adele has recently been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize for poetry and the Staunch Prize for flash fiction, an international award for thrillers without violence to women. Visit her website @thelithag.com

Peggy Hammond’s recent poems appear or are forthcoming in Pangyrus, The Comstock Review, Waterwheel Review, San Pedro River Review, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, For Women Who Roar, Fragmented Voices, Eunoia Review, Scissortail Quarterly, The Sandy River Review, Moonstone Arts Center’s anthology Protest 2021, Dear Reader, Burningword Literary Journal, Boats Against The Current, and elsewhere. A Best of the Net nominee, her chapbook The Fifth House Tilts is due out fall 2022 from Kelsay Books. Her full-length play A Little Bit of Destiny was produced by OdysseyStage Theatre in Durham, NC. Find her on Twitter at @PHammondPoetry.

Abby Kloppenburg is the only writer living in New York. Her work has been featured in Human Parts, Bodega Fiction and Words Dance, among others.

Christian Ward is a UK-based writer who can be recently found in Stone Poetry Journal, Discretionary Love and Red Ogre Review. Future poems will be appearing in Dreich, Uppagus and BlueHouse Journal.

Eric Abalajon is currently a lecturer at the University of the Philippines Visayas, Iloilo. Some of his works have appeared or are forthcoming in Revolt Magazine, Loch Raven Review, Ani, Katitikan, Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Tiger Moth Review, and elsewhere. Under the pen name Jacob Laneria, his chapbook of short fiction Mga Migranteng Sandali (Kasingkasing Press, 2020) was included in CNN Philippines’ best Filipino books of 2020. He lives near Iloilo City.

Susan E. Wigget (she/her) has an MS in Writing from Portland State University and a BA in Creative Writing. Her travel memoir Every Day is Magical: A Buddhist Pilgrimage in India and Nepal, her novel Skeleton from the Closet, and her fantasy series Rowanwick Witches are available on Amazon.com. Her novella Witch’s Familiar is in the Wormhole Electric Anthology. Aphelion Webzine and Augustcutter.com published a couple of her stories. You can find her on Twitter @sewiget or on Medium at https://sewigget503.medium.com.

Zachary Shiffman (he/him) is a fiction writer from New Jersey. He is currently studying Creative Writing at Susquehanna University and has been published in the undergraduate literary magazines RiverCraft and Catfish Creek. You can find him on Twitter at @zack_shiffman.

Alan Brickman, when not writing, consults to nonprofit organizations on strategic planning and program evaluation. Raised in New York, educated in Massachusetts, he now lives in New Orleans with his 17-year old border collie Jasper, and neither of them can imagine living anywhere else. Alan's fiction will appear in The Ekphrastic Review (November 2021), Literary Heist (December 2021), JONAH Magazine (January 2022), Oracle (spring 2022), SPANK the CARP (April 2022), and The Evening Street Press (summer 2022). He can be reached at alanbrickman13@gmail.com. Meredith Craig (she/her) is a writer based in Brooklyn. As a journalist, her work has appeared in countless magazines and newspapers including Delta Sky, Lonely Planet, Times Union and Vice Magazine. She is co-founder of Word!, a self-organized workshop for women, following the Iowa’s Writers Program MOOC, and also is a reader for Uncharted Magazine. Recently, she was a participant in the Marin Better Books writer's workshop and had a short story on hold for an anthology with Outcast Press. IG: @meredithcraigdepietro TW: @meredithcraigde

Sophia Kriegel (she/her) is a junior at Emerson College where is studying Creative Writing. She works as a staff writer for Em Mag, a dynamic on-campus literary publication, and she founded a poetry collective in her suburban hometown that fostered creativity and curated a space for artists to feel comfortable sharing their work. Her writing centers around themes of girlhood, the complexities of familial relationships (Sophia is an identical twin!), and the intricate innerworkings of her post-adolescent(?) brain. She can be found on instagram @sophkriegel.

Luisa Balaban (she/her) is on her journey to discover what her interests and callings are. She has written essays and interviews for multiple online/print magazines in Romania, her home country, and now she's exploring new literary terrains such as Non-Fiction, Flash Fiction, and immersive journaling while based in Spain. She tweets at @wilxluisa and writes on Medium at @balaban.luisa

Megan McKinley is the Texas Review Press Publicity Fellow and the nonfiction editor for Defunkt Magazine. Her work has been published in Variety Pack and forthcoming in Gutslut Press. They are completing their MFA at Sam Houston State University in Creative Writing, Editing, and Publishing. They currently reside in Huntsville, Texas with their cat.

Alex Gurtis, Maryland born but Florida bred, he’s a poet and journalist based in Orlando. His work has appeared in W&S Quarterly, EcoTheo Review, Rejection Letters, and others. Alex is a MFA candidate at the University of Central Florida and currently serves as a reader for HASH.

Corey Farrenkopf (He/Him) lives on Cape Cod with his wife, Gabrielle, and works as a librarian. He is the fiction editor for The Cape Cod Poetry Review. His work has been published in The Southwest Review, Catapult, Tiny Nightmares, Redivider, Wigleaf, Hobart, Flash Fiction Online, Bourbon Penn, and elsewhere. To learn more, follow him on twitter @CoreyFarrenkopf or on the web at CoreyFarrenkopf.com

Wendy BooydeGraaff’s work has been included in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Popshot Quarterly, Five South, The Brooklyn Review, and elsewhere, and is forthcoming in Brink and Lost Balloon. Her short fiction and poetry has been nominated this year for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and the Best Microfiction anthology.

Jessica Klimesh (she/her) is a US-based technical editor and proofreader whose creative work has appeared or is forthcoming in Brink, Jersey Devil Press, Bending Genres, and Ghost Parachute, among others. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Cedar Crest College and an MA in English from Bowling Green State University. She is currently working on a novellain-flash. Follow her on Twitter at @JEKProofreading.

Christine Arroyo (she/her) has had her work published in X-R-A-Y Magazine and Flash Fiction Magazine. She loves wandering through Brooklyn and New York looking for street art. On Instagram you can find her @christynicky.

MJ Malleck is a first-generation university graduate who grew up on the Canadian side of the US border and still likes her weather in Fahrenheit degrees. Her work has appeared in The Temz Review, Entropy, and Wrongdoing. She is working on a story collection and her first novel.

Santucci is a writer and artist living near Cleveland, OH. His work can be seen in Roanoke Review, Star82 Review, and Ponder Review. His work is also forthcoming in Poemeleon Review and Barzakh.

Joseph S. Pete is an award-winning journalist, the author of three books, an Iraq War veteran, an Indiana University graduate, and a frequent guest on Lakeshore Public Radio. He is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee who was named the poet laureate of Chicago BaconFest, a feat that Geoffrey Chaucer never accomplished. His literary work and photography have appeared or are forthcoming in more than 100 literary journals, including Stoneboat, The High Window, Synesthesia Literary Journal, Steep Street Journal, Beautiful Losers, New Pop Lit, The Grief Diaries, Gravel, The Perch Magazine, Rising Phoenix Review, Chicago Literati, Dogzplot, Bull Men's Fiction, shufPoetry, The Roaring Muse, Prairie Winds, Blue Collar Review, Lumpen,

The Rat's Ass Review, The Tipton Poetry Journal, Euphemism, Jenny Magazine, and Vending Machine Press. Like Bartleby, he would prefer not to.

Edward Michael Supranowicz is the grandson of Irish and Russian/Ukrainian immigrants. He grew up on a small farm in Appalachia. He has a grad background in painting and printmaking. Some of his artwork has recently or will soon appear in Fish Food, Streetlight, Another Chicago Magazine, The Door Is a Jar, The Phoenix, and other journals. Edward is also a published poet.

Shelley Valdez is a queer Filipino-American writer, artist, and editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has won multiple prizes, and has been published by poets.org, The Best Emerging Poets of California, Freezeray, and elsewhere. When she’s not working with words, she loves making soup for her friends.