Poem out from behind the paywall in Meanjin, Heart Heal Thyself.
You can read it here, and I’ve attached a recording below.
criplit
LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING
I have a poem published in the most recent issue of Voiceworks, LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING.
Aphrodite is the oldest of the Olympian gods, and I thought about exploring a darker, more primordial reading of her. As the goddess of love and beauty, her marriage to disabled Hephaestus is often seen as a cosmic joke. I wanted to see that conflict resolved with a queer turn.
This will be my last poem in Voiceworks, since I turned 25 a few days after the submission deadline. I am deeply grateful to Voiceworks editor Adalya Nash Hussein for helping shape this poem into something I am sincerely proud of (and for being very patient while I rambled on at length about mythic context).
The issue includes a breathtaking illustration by Iona Julian-Walters accompanying my poem. You can pick up a copy here.
LOVE-LIES-BLEEDING
Here’s another version. Aphrodite is an old god,
older than most. She is born when Cronus cuts off
his father’s dick and flings it into the ocean. Around
the severed organ silver foam wells up, and in time
a girl takes shape in the crest of the wave, her body
pale and shining. When she emerges from the water
grass grows beneath her feet. Her outline wavers
a little in the blush of dawn, lit around with gold.
This is before she knows the form of her divinity.
She thinks she might be a goddess of the morning,
or of summer blossoms, or birdsong. But her teeth
are a little too sharp for that, the arch of her throat
too cruel. She lacks the batlike wings of her infernal
sisters, the jealous Furies, but there is something
in her eyes that resembles them. What she wants,
she takes. Her attention is first drawn to her husband
by the bright rubies winking in his earlobes, then by
the delicate treasures he crafts as courting-gifts:
grand chariots, jewelled chalices, fine-wrought chains.
His prosthesis is simple but lovely, a platinum frame
spun lightly around the scarred warp of his leg.
Hephaestus, like her, has an eye for beauty. Later
outside Troy the goddess hears a bloodcurdling cry
as brazen Ares comes blazing through the mortal
ranks, his eyes flashing with hellish flame, red with
gore, beautiful and terrible. She takes him to her bed
not long afterward. Stripped of his bloody raiment,
spilled out against her pillows, the god of strife is
strangely vulnerable. His hands are soft at his sides.
Aphrodite has no mercy in her: she rises over him,
bites and scratches, sinks her claws deep into his flesh.
Her husband finds them there like that. Ares glowing
under the light of the moon, Aphrodite pinning him
down. Hephaestus stops in the doorway, his shadow
stretching out over their bodies. His knuckles are white
around a golden net. His eyes are burning. Aphrodite
arches her back, tips her head back lazily to meet her
husband’s furious gaze; then she opens her arms to him
as Ares shudders beneath her. A moment of hesitation.
The golden mesh slips out of his hands. He strides forward.
HYMN TO THE STRAINING ONES
I had a poem published recently in Scum magazine, HYMN TO THE STRAINING ONES.
In Greek myth Atlas was the Titan who held up the cosmos. It is also the name of the very uppermost spinal vertebra. The word “Titan” means “the straining ones”.
You can read the poem here.
RESISTANCE AND HOPE
Illustration by artist Micah Bazant featuring a midnight blue sky with little white stars. Below is a log with mushrooms growing out of it in multiple shapes and colors. “Text reads: Resistance & Hope, Essays by Disabled People, Crip Wisdom for the People, Edited by Alice Wong, Disability Visibility Project.” The ‘o’ in ‘Hope’ looks like a full moon.
I am very excited to finally share Resistance and Hope, an anthology of essays by disabled writers and activists. The anthology is available to read here for free online.
I was very honoured to work as an editorial assistant (and herder of cats) for Alice Wong, the editor of the anthology.
Resistance and Hope is comprised of 16 essays by 17 multiply marginalised disabled people. Contributors include writer and advocate Vilissa Thompson on the audacity of hope as a Black woman; LGBQT advocate Victoria Rodriguéz-Roldán on respectability politics; attorney and activist Shain Neumeier on trauma and survival; ADAPT legend Anita Cameron on the importance of holding hope in darkness; activist Stacey Milbern on caregiving collectives and Medicaid cuts; artists DJ Kuttin Kandiand Leroy Moore on hip hop and disability liberation; writer and artist Naomi Ortiz on self-care and growth; fearless agent of change Talila A. “TL” Lewis on resistance and revolutionary madness; writer and poet Aleksei Valentín on Judaism and disability solidarity; essayist and poet Cyree Jarelle Johnson on autism in a time of resistance; activist and poet Lev Mirov on death, grieving, and survival; autistic advocate and organiser Lydia X.Z. Brown on praxis, accountability, and intracommunity abuse; writer Mari Kurisato on colonial violence and visibility; comic Maysoon Zayid on the strategic fight for our rights in the Trump era; community organiser Mia Mingus on transformative justice and building alternatives to violence; and artist and writer Noemi Martinez on survival and multiple marginalisations.
This is crip wisdom for the people.
Defining disability poetics
I recently reviewed the disability poetry anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back, edited by Sandra Alland, Khairani Barokka, and Daniel Sluman. It is a beautiful anthology, and well worth the read.
You can read or listen to my review in issue 7 of Deaf Poets Society, here.
You can buy a copy of Stairs and Whispers here.
RITUAL out in Speculative City
New poem out in Speculative City, “ritual”, on personal and cultural neuroses.
You can read it here.
LOVECRY/BATTLESONG
Recently one of my poems was a finalist in the Coalition of Texans with Disabilities’ Pen2Paper disability-focussed creative writing contest. I have reproduced the text of the poem here.
—
To my crip siblings, crip lovers, & crip mentors, to Laura Hershey and to Stella Young.
—
To the crips I love and who love me in return
from a distance or intimately close during
long nights where neither of us can sleep for pain
waiting for morning and the pain that morning brings
I am here for you.
To the crips who have been crips for longer
than I have been on this earth and who
welcomed me with open hearts and fire
of loving purpose in ancient battle
I am here for you.
To the crips who taught me power
comes from pride and pride comes from practicing
until you are proud (and that you don’t get proud
by being shit: you get proud by practicing)
I am here for you.
To the crips who do not know that they are crips
but know only that they hurt that their bones ache
that their muscles are heavy and that their eyes sting
in sunlight after another unhelpful appointment
I am here for you.
To the crips institutionalised and imprisoned
whose first crime was living and continuing to live
abused and neglected in homes that are not homes
trapped not in their bodies but by bar and mortar
I am here for you.
To the crips who sleep overnight
in desk chairs and wheelchairs
in the offices of politicians bedecked with banners
reading FREE OUR PEOPLE
I am here for you.
To the crips that have houses but not homes
or homes but not houses or neither home nor house
forced to live on the kindness and sideways glances
of strangers on public transport
I am here for you.
To the crips whose lands have been stolen
whose waters have been stolen
whose children have been stolen and whose lives
continue to be stolen
I am here for you.
To the crips who dislocate their hips
doing full service sex work to pay for medical bills
incurred from dislocating their hips
while doing full service sex work
I am here for you.
To the crips fighting to love each other
and to have their love recognised on equal terms
with all who are in love without penalty or price
or public stigma or getting bashed on street corners
I am here for you.
To the crips fighting to love themselves
after being unloved by those who should have loved them
or after being hurt by those who professed their love
but only when it was convenient
I am here for you.
To the crips who are drowning
in cold oceans seeking refuge or drowning
on dry land as their lungs fill with fluid
while emergency registrars do not watch
I am here for you.
To the crips who are burning
who have burnt out and from the ashes
are rising again charcoaled and brittle
and bold and battle-hardened
I am here for you.
To the crips who died
after living and loving and fighting
and then falling
to be remembered with love and fight
I am here for you.
To the crips who aren’t dead yet
living and fighting and fighting to live
and loving each other and fighting
for each other
I am here for you.
To the young crips, the old crips, the
queer crips, the trans crips, the brown crips,
the black crips, the proud crips, the tired crips,
the warrior crips, the poet crips, the dead and alive crips,
I think of you
I love and fight for you
I am here for you.
UNSPOKEN WORDS: a festival of writing
[image description: collaged text in pink orange & white on purple background, UNSPOKEN WORDS June 3-4 RED RATTLER: performances/workshops/panels/open mic reading space]
oh gosh there has been so much happening lately & i have so little time to think let alone to write anything about any of it. i am running desperately late on a numberof important projects (including salvaging my Honours degree – i have just yesterday managed to get access to Dragon dictation software which i am very much hoping will help with the writing of long essays with dislocated wrists part of that!!)
most recently neglected: my appearance in a series of panels & lectures on at UNSPOKEN WORDS, a festival of stories. the sunday evening session (including a poetry reading from myself) was Auslan interpreted by the excellent Auslan Stage Left. i am quite proud of the accessibility guide i helped develop which is available here.
the program is available here & lists the incredible lineup of artists and panels, including Hani Abdile, Evelyn Araluen, Maryam Azam, Stephany Basia, the Black and Deadly Women’s Poetry Circle, Emily Crocker, Winnie Dunn, Stelly Gappasauress, Isaac Green, Dan Hogan and Stacey Teague of Subbed In, Lizzy Jarrett, Gabrielle Journey Jones, Holly Friedlander Liddicoat, Fayroze Lutta, Paige Phillips, Poesifika, Candy Royalle, Sea, Ella Skilbeck-Porter, Effy Marie Smith, Margarita Tenser, Thelma Thomas aka MC Trey, Bron Watkins, and Joseph Zane. the festival was MC’d and organised by Emma Rose Smith.
i ran 1 solo lecture, was on 2 joint panels, & read some of my poetry in the evening.
[image description: white text on pink and blue background. PANEL – DEFINING OURSELVES FOR OURSELVES]
Defining Ourselves for Ourselves
Maryam Azam, Winnie Dunn, Robin M. Eames
11:15am – 12:15pm, main stage
Can we define ourselves by writing ourselves? We write ourselves, in whatever way possible for our individual needs, so as to create alternatives to single narratives. We need to see ourselves represented by people like us. Too many stories filter the whole world of experience through the gaze of abled cishet white people. This panel discusses the resistant power of telling our own stories, through the symbolic dialogue between living, visibility and text. We ask if and how we can write despite and beyond the dominating gaze of dual invisibility/hypervisibility that often occurs around politicised bodies.
[image description: white text on yellow and blue background. LECTURE – CRIPPING THE LITERARY: FINDING CRIP CULTURE]
Cripping the Literary: Finding Crip Culture, Learning Crip Language
Robin M. Eames
2:30 – 3:00pm, main stage
A fifth of Australians are disabled. So where the fuck are they? Are they at your poetry events? Are you reading their work? Are you listening to their communities? Are you fighting alongside them for their civil rights? If not, why? How do we change that? How can a gig, or space, or culture, be accessible (or not)? What are we overlooking? Why aren’t wheelchair users coming to our non-wheelchair-accessible events? How does disabled culture & community even manifest itself? For few answers & more questions, come to this lecture by Robin M. Eames, a disabled queertrans warrior poet who is only mostly dead.
[image description: white text on pink and blue background. PANEL – QUEERING POETRY: WRITING OURSELVES INTO EXISTENCE]
Queering Poetry: Writing Ourselves Into Existence
Margarita Tenser, Isaac Green, Robin M. Eames
5:00 – 5:45pm, main stage
Three trans, queer, & disabled panellists speak about queering poetry, trans retrohistories, art & intersectional identity, living in ill-fitting worlds & bodies, finding ourselves in stories not made with us in mind, and writing ourselves back into the narratives.
[image description: white text on pink and yellow background. PERFORMANCES – UNFINISHED BUSINESS]
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Doors open (and dinner served) from 6:30, performances start 6:45. Main stage.
Hani Abdile, Winnie Dunn, Isaac Green, Robin M. Eames, Lorin Elizabeth, Dan Hogan, Elizabeth Jarrett, Gabrielle Journey Jones, Ella Skilbeck-Porter, Margarita Tenser, Auslan Stage Left
Come one and all to the biggest session of Unspoken Words! Hosted by the wonderful Lorin Elizabeth, this night will feature poetry readings by Winnie Dunn, Isaac Green, Robin M. Eames, Dan Hogan, Elizabeth Jarrett, Gabrielle Journey Jones, Ella Skilbeck-Porter and Margarita Tenser.
Hani Abdile will then present Absent Souls: A conversation with imprisoned souls. This new performance will be accompanied by a Q&A session and Hani’s performance of her own poetry.
This session will feature live Auslan interpretation thanks to Auslan Stage Left!
Dinner will be available thanks to Parliament on King, the social enterprise caterer. Beautiful food made with love. Proceeds from the catering are reinvested into hospitality training programs for locals with asylum seeker / refugee backgrounds at the King St café.
[image description: event poster with a not-quite-complete list of artists, in the style of the featured image of this blog post, described above]
the festival was held at the Red Rattler Theatre, on the stolen lands of the Gadigal Wangal peoples of the Eora nation. sovereignty has never been ceded. always was, always will be Aboriginal land.
i really can’t emphasise enough how utterly awed, delighted, & proud i felt to be sharing a stage with such powerful & beautiful artists, & to have the chance to listen to their words. we did something really special last weekend & it gives me hope.
Robin M. Eames 