luna luna magazine

Brokelyn Poetry Feature

Leave a comment

I’m so moved that Joanna Valente, a poet who I very much enjoy and the editor of Yes, Poetry, included me in her Brokelyn Poetry round-up this week alongside Joe Pan and Michael J Seidlinger. She selected lines from each poem she chose from us, and provided links to the full poem. For me, she chose my poem “In the Oven,” published by Luna Luna Magazine, which, content warning, is about sexual abuse and survival. It was a complete surprise that, best of all, introduced me to the work of a couple of great Brooklyn poets. I hope you enjoy her post!

 

Featured image by Lauren Mitchell, 2009

Light Magic for Dark Times review on BUST

Leave a comment

I love Lisa Marie Basile‘s new book, Light Magic for Dark Times. “Basile’s magic feels like a dip into The Artist’s Way for witches,” which is no surprise since you may already know her creative writing, and Luna Luna Magazine, which she runs and founded. The spells she writes benefit from her poetry, and the journaling and other reflective exercises help the reader heal and learn about themselves before they even light a candle.

While the book is geared toward femme spirits, Basile’s language and focus is mindfully intersectional and gender-inclusive, embracing of fluid and non-binary identities, and all bodies and body types. The focus is always on self-love and self-care, particularly for marginalized people who may feel ground-down in the day to day of our, lately dark, times. There are spells for healing burnout after social justice protests, trauma, chronic illness, grief, and discrimination, and as always, the focus is on increasing love and kindness in all of its forms. In short, bringing the light in.

To learn more about what I love about the book, her work in shadow magic, and the ins and outs of ritual, check out my review for BUST.com. I’m looking forward to revisiting this book for years to come, and I hope all you artists, witches, and wonderful sprites answer if it calls to you.

lisa

Illustration of the author in Light Magic for Dark Times

Luna Luna Resists: Protest, Lit, Community

Leave a comment

If you need resistance literature and community organizing in your life, join me for LUNA LUNA RESISTS: Protest, Lit, Community. Some of my favorite writers are performing, as well as a number of writers I have not yet had the pleasure of hearing. It’s important to use our work for resistance, to support those affected by Trump’s despotic regime, and to create a safe community for dissent, activism, and mobilization. Here’s the run-down from the organizers:

the-secret-behind-the-veil-n6-1379096094_b

Lita Cabellut, Romani artist, from her series “The Secret Behind the Veil” 

This Sunday, 2/5, from 5-8 PM, Luna Luna Magazine presents a night of poetry, prose and dialogue in the spirit of resistance & community support. Partnering with GAMBAzine at the Gamba Forest space in Brooklyn, NY, Luna Luna will host short readings and a space for informal discussion and conversation around support, organizing and personal stories. Each reader will present 1-2 short pieces. Drinks will be available for purchase. There will be a few intermissions and time for talking.

We encourage people to bring friends and family. We especially welcome women, people of color, immigrants and other marginalized groups that are at risk under the Trump administration.

IF YOU OR YOUR FAMILY ARE DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY TRUMP, PLEASE LET US KNOW. WE WANT TO HEAR YOUR WORK.

*** READER LINEUP ***

SET 1:
Lisa Marie Basile
Monica Lewis
Rowana Abbensetts
Jessica Reidy
Shafina Ahmed
Dianca London
Trish Grisafi

SET 2:
Melissa Hunter Gurney
Tala Abu Rahmeh
Stephanie Valente
Mercy L. Tullis-Bukhari
Joanna Valente
Karina Vahitova
Chris Carr

SET 3:
Christine Stoddard
Ronna Lebo
Olivia Kate Cerrone
Deniz Ataman
Yi Wu
Nicola Maye Goldberg
Jasmine Dreame Wagner

 

veil

Lita Cabellut, from the series “The Secret Behind the Veil”

Happy Valentine’s Day! Luna Luna Magazine Re-launch, and my poetry

Leave a comment

vintageHappy Valentine’s Day! In the spirit of the holiday, here’s a straight-talking fish smoking a cigarette and expressing her emotional needs. I hope you, dear reader, are having a few beautiful moments with yourself, the true beloved. Luna Luna Magazine has this great collection of Victorian Valentine’s Day cards and vintage postcard erotica. Got to love that.

I’m a little late to the party, but Luna Luna Magazine‘s new address is http://www.lunalunamagazine.com and it is even more marvelous than before, as above, so below, and the eternal dance of dark and light, many blessings to you. And I’m so excited that a few moons ago Luna Luna re-released my poems “In the Oven,” “Night and Night,” and “Gulls Calling Over Corcaigh” on their new site, too, so now you can read them here. Quail Bell Magazine also reprinted them when they were first released. Thank you to both awesome magazines for the support! Head’s up/trigger warning, all three deal heavily with sexual trauma and child abuse. Why am I posting them on Valentine’s Day, particularly when the re-launch happened ages ago and today is supposed to be happy and dedicated to love? No idea! It’s just happening. The cosmos is chaos.

I will say this, of the holiday. I’m thinking a lot about my little tattoo– a bird that’s standing on the Rromanes verb “VOLI” meaning “to love.” I got this tattoo, on this day years ago, because I wanted to remember that love is an action. What we do is love, and to love, we must act lovingly. Thank you to my friends and readers who have treated me with love and kindness through messages and actions this year. I hope you all are treated with the utmost care and respect because you deserve the best.

IMG_6768

My little bird VOLI tattoo wishes you a Happy Valentine’s Day

“In the Oven” mentioned in Delirious Hem’s rape culture and alt lit poetry series

Leave a comment

My trauma poems recently in Luna Luna Magazine were mentioned in Delirious Hem’s rape culture and alt lit series. Y’all gotta check it out– the poets in the series are amazing, full of terrifying beauty, grit, and power, and I’m feeling very honored to be among them. http://delirioushem.blogspot.com/

cropped-cropped-p32

delirious_hem_banner

Trauma poetry in Luna Luna Magazine

2 Comments

I’ve been honored to have three poems about childhood sexual trauma appear in Luna Luna Magazine, a favorite ezine of mine (and sister publication to Quail Bell Magazine). These poems are the first to be published from a series on trauma that I’ve been working on for many years. I’m putting together the manuscript alongside the novel I’m working on about Coco, a half-Romani (Gypsy) dancer and fortune teller at a Parisian circus who becomes a Nazi hunter. Coincidentally, the novel will contain a few poems. I’m so motivated to finish both projects within the next year. A large part of that is due to the warm reception that these poems have gotten– I couldn’t be more grateful or more touched. Many thanks. And a big thank you to Lisa A. Flowers, founder of Vulgar Marsala Press and author of diotomhero, who solicited me. I also got a lot of good advice about writing trauma poetry from Erin Belieu, Florida State University professor and co-founder of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, and I so appreciate her help and encouragement. Check out Erin’s latest book Slant Six, and its starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.

You may know Luna Luna for their powerful feminist content, their fierce leader Lisa Marie Basile (Apocryphal), their cutting edge poetry and fiction, and their articles and features on alternative spirituality, the occult, and beautiful cultural practices from all over the world. One of my new favorite things is their Poescopes, that is, poetic horoscopes by Fox Foley-Frazier (Exodus in X Minor), curator of The Infoxicated Corner of The The Poetry Blog. P.S. I have some poems about Romani rights and mythology in the Infoxicated Corner as part of the Political Punch series. 

So here’s the link for “In the Oven,” “Night and Night,” “Gulls Calling Over Corcaigh” in Luna Luna Magazine. http://lunalunamag.com/2014/11/03/poems-jessica-reidy/

Thank you for reading, readers. I feel fearsome and strong, and I’m writing like a demon. I was a demon for Halloween, by the way.

horns2

Click the demon to read the poems, I dare you.