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.
Omotara James - “Half Girl, Then Elegy”
“Having fallen from the sky, and then
Through it. Having landed to realize
I had been part”
John Murillo - “A Refusal to Mourn the Deaths, By Gunfire, of Three Men in Brooklyn”
“You dream of stockpiles—bottles filled with gas
and wicks stripped from a dead cop’s slacks—a row
of paddy wagons parked, a pitcher’s arm.
You dream of roses, time-lapse blossoms from
the breasts of sheriffs, singing Calico
and casings’ rain. You dream of scattered stars,
dream panthers at the precinct, dream a black-
out, planned and put to use.”
E. Kristin Anderson - “Sleeping Through”
“I’m unfamiliar with holy, but I’ll
tear away these feathers from my eyes, look for a way to bring
open the heavy windows and reach so that I might taste the rain
that collects at night. In the sun I kiss a crow, a mockingbird. Oh,
let’s tangle the dead in ink, print the map on my skin. And when
I kiss the branch and bone of self, discover there a wildfire.”
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