BY JOANNA C. VALENTE
As the senior managing editor at Luna Luna and the founding editor at Yes Poetry, you could say writing is important to me, especially poetry. For me, it’s vital to highlight poetic voices in order to support literature, activism, and expression.
Here are three of my favorite poems I read recently.
Jill Mceldowney - “Dream Tree”
“how precious is time,
how long wine waits to peak,
how long love waits to set fire to our lives.
How long do we have
before time fills our love with blood?”
Christina Olivares - “Understanding as an Imaginative Act in the Americas”
“History is also: a particular fear or a set
of particular fears embedded in
us, like shrapnel, meshing with with the body
and resisting excavation.
The dead are never silent. Our bodies are
lodged with the dead”
Vi Khi Nao - “The Binchōtan Charcoal & Its Ash”
“From House of Cards she learned a new rule: “I love that
woman. I love her more than sharks love blood.”
Or something along that line. She may have misquoted.
It came out of the pre-disgraced Kevin Spacey’s mouth.
Her God doesn’t exercise telepathy or residence.
Hands, eyes, mouths, authenticity.
It’s a city without mirrors.
Because touch, in itself, is symmetry.”
Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York. They are the author of Sirs & Madams, The Gods Are Dead, Marys of the Sea, Sexting Ghosts, Xenos, No(body) (forthcoming, Madhouse Press, 2019), and is the editor of A Shadow Map: Writing by Survivors of Sexual Assault. They received their MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College. Joanna is the founder of Yes Poetry and the senior managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine. Some of their writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Them, Brooklyn Magazine, BUST, and elsewhere. Joanna also leads workshops at Brooklyn Poets. joannavalente.com / Twitter: @joannasaid / IG: joannacvalente / FB: joannacvalente