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.
Monica Youn - “Study of Two Figures (Pasiphaë/Sado)”
“One figure is female, the other is male.
Both are contained.
One figure is mythical, the other historical.
To the extent that one can be said to have existed at all, they occupy different millennia, different continents.
But, to the extent that one can be said to have existed at all, both figures are considered Asian—one from Colchis, one from Korea.
To mention the Asianness of the figures creates a “racial marker” in the poem.”
Traci Brimhall - “Resistance”
“I must hide under desks
when the forecast reads: leaves red
as meat, sleeping lions, chandelier
of bone, moon smooth as a worry
stone. I must want my life and fear
the thin justice of grass. Clouds
hunt, wound the rising tide. I must
be paradised. On my knees again.”
Rosebud Ben-Oni - “Poet Wrestling with Atonement”
“& now you’re a songless thing tearing through
the middle of this horse, who(m) if I don’t finish,
will be left swimming
in loose folds of ocean
for eternity
—so I turn you into a horse
& you say the ice is not a place for sacrifice".”
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