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.
Kristine Esser Slentz - “asses”
“i told him i loved him, he said me too
to help prevent further cheating after
i punched him in the ribs when he said he
would do whatever he wanted, me crying after
realizing toxicity delivers more pain than change after
listen, sweet children, you must stop this cycle after”
Zeina Hashem Beck - “Escape”
“this room has a phone booth
with one button
it says mother
we do not press it
we are tired of
our mothers crying
our mothers are tired
of being gods”
Darren C. Demaree - “america chose to drown in the desert”
“the love i have for my own children as something like a funeral avoided a funeral held without bodies because all of the bodies have been separated from each other all of the bodies that once held each other cultivated distilled the purples hope can give into a perfume that rises towards the moon above the brush in a desert america chose to drown in when all america needed to do was allow each foot step to be a gift in the old way it was a gift but instead we opened our throats to meet the sun instead we looked into the eyes of children separated from their parents and called their brokenness the flood we’d been waiting for”
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