Lisa A. Flowers of Luna Luna Magazine recently published three poems by visiting professor Jessica Reidy‘s series of poetry in-progress on childhood sexual trauma. Alongside the series, Jessica is also working on her novel, currently titled Zenith, about a half-Romani (Gypsy) dancer and fortune teller at a Parisian circus who becomes a Nazi hunter. And at the CWW’s upcoming Pre-Thanksgiving Yoga, Writing, and Juice Cleanse retreat in New York, Jessica will be teaching a craft class titled “The Art of Withholding,” that is, artfully crafting a piece of writing by what is not said rather than by what is told. The inspiration for this class came from her essay on Romani poetics, titled, “The Magic Word: ‘Gypsy’ Witchcraft, Love, and Breaking Tradition in Luminiţa Mihai Cioabă’s Poem ‘The Apparition of Choxani’” in the Infoxicated Corner of The The Poetry Blog, curated by Fox Frazier-Foley. Come join us for the retreat, get some writing done, stretch your mind and body, and clear your system and stress in time for the holidays.
Below is Jessica’s poem “In the Oven,” as appeared first in Luna Luna Magazine. Check out Luna Luna Magazine for “Night and Night” and “Gulls Calling Over Corcaigh.” http://lunalunamag.com/2014/11/03/poems-jessica-reidy/
In the Oven
behind the deli counter
behind the man in white
the moon is dripping
fat like candlestick wax on the countryside below
(valley of flesh below). I ask him,
is that meat clean? like the silver dollar I polished
when I was four—drop and rattle—
in the metal horse’s belly,
a slot up in its withers, the bank lodged in her ribs.
I’d stare in that void and wish myself in.
You see, I’ve been saving myself up
since I was young.
I’ll be clean like that, I say to the man,
the day my body is thin-gone
and can’t feel anyone.
Florescent lights cleave me in two I ask,
who is carving away legs arms heads
tissue stretched cartilage stripped of curdles?
Who can
feel nothing through no membrane?
Once I could feel everything
when I was young:
him ripping in
taking everything.
I say,
I wore my candy wrapper skin so tight
he used to take it off at night.
Bare bones clinking
licked clean.
Who could hear my squalling
over all that?
(she heard, I know she heard)
When boots hit the floor, my nerves ride
a scalpel (even now)
a scalpel cut around
the cyst cradled in my tendons
snapped when he arced
my wrists back like a r a i n b o w.
He whispered, I’ll fuck you dead.
His thumbs found my throat
and choked me back into the rainbow.
She said, Go on, tell the doctor. You hurt yourself doing cartwheels.
The membrane glowed under surgical light.
Mucinous fluid made a full moon, an oven lamp,
that lit the room as I counted backwards:
I’ll fuck you dead.
I want to say,
all that fat on the country’s side, imagine it,
bright and brilliant slick
like an Easter ham, human faces
pressed on a window, what a generous night.
What a timely celebration of regeneration.
I want to say,
my cells will renew themselves, but girl, don’t
fool yourself. Tendons won’t knit
back together and neither will you.
There will be no cave for your bones
forever rising and falling for your bodily sacrifice.
And that’s not all.
Bodies picked clean. Bodies taking
all they can.
I want to say,
the body houses those memories too dangerous
for the brain. Shallow sparrow breaths rip
over bare nerves, sharp ghosts
through the muscles, bones, the pelvic bowl.
Save it for later—trap the pain. Wrap me up in cellophane.
My bones shook, shook clean, shook dirty-clean
I’m saving myself.
Cold turkeys stick bloody to their wrappers
and I want to say,
hours later, I dragged myself to the couch
and slept under the skylight moon.
I woke screaming in the early morning
thinking he was the silver greasing me.
Blood stuck me to the upholstery
so floral that no one would notice
the wound within wound without.
Only the morning light asks,
What happened here?
And only to be polite.
No, I’m not ordering anything, sir.
You don’t want to hear it, I know,
and I don’t want a thing.
I’m saving myself up
for all that country side, and all those ribs
turning over for our teeth.
I’m just one tray in the oven—
please, let me say I’m done.
Jessica Reidy is a mixed-Romani (Gypsy) heritage writer from New Hampshire. She earned her MFA in Fiction at Florida State University and a B.A. from Hollins University. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart, and has appeared in Narrative Magazine as Short Story of the Week, The Los Angeles Review, Arsenic Lobster, and other journals. She’s a staff-writer and Outreach Editor for Quail Bell Magazine, Managing Editor for VIDA: Women in the Literary Arts, Visiting Professor for the Cambridge Writer’s Workshop, and Art Editor for The Southeast Review. She teaches creative writing, yoga, and sometimes dance. Jessica is currently working on her first novel set in post-WWII Paris about Coco Charbonneau, a half-Romani burlesque dancer and fortune teller of Zenith Circus, who becomes a Nazi hunter.
Saturday February 7, 2015 * 19:00-20:30
Rita Banerjee is a writer and creative writing instructor at the Munich Readery. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and her writing has been published in Poets for Living Waters, The New Renaissance, The Fiction Project, Jaggery: A DesiLit Arts and Literature Journal, Catamaran, Amethyst Arsenic, The Crab Creek Review, The Dudley Review, Objet d’Art, Vox Populi, Dr. Hurley’s Snake-Oil Cure, and Chrysanthemum. Her first collection of poems, Cracklers at Night, received First Honorable Mention for Best Poetry Book at the Los Angeles Book Festival. Her novella, A Night with Kali, was digitized by the Brooklyn Art-house Co-op. She is Executive Creative Director of the Cambridge Writers’ Workshop, and her writing has also been recently featured in VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, Quail Bell Magazine, Speaking of Marvels, and on KBOO Radio’s APA Compass in Portland, Oregon.
Cambridge Writers' Workshop 