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.
Vanessa Angélica Villarreal - “Exercise in the Face of Divorce”
“The land ends here. When did we stop kissing.
When did we stop talking. When was it that you fell out of love?”
Jessica Morey-Collins - “On My Deathbed”
“I’ve stayed
for decades, fretting safety until my hems frayed,
insulated by distance, the precision
of my unshared bed”
Justin Karcher - “The Patron Saint of Dorito Dust”
“we would pretend he was always reaching into the stomachs of suns and pulling out their guts
licking all that star death separated him from the rest, made him saintly
we were just jealous, now look at us
we pray to him in silence when stabbing the shit out of hot pockets
the fat sauce oozing out of the icy crust and we all start to cry”
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