Ongoing notes: dusie kollektiv 9: Dana Teen Lomax + Juliet Cook

Further to the latest iteration of the dusie kollektiv [see my prior notes on chapbooks by Bronwen Tate and Elisabeth Workman from the same kollektiv here; on C.S.Carrier and Adra Raine here; on gillian parrish and Carrie Hunter here; see the link to my own chapbook here], here are a couple of more chapbook-length works solicited by dusie maven Susana Gardner, produced in/as homage to the late American poet, editor and publisher Marthe Reed.

San Quentin CA: Dana Teen Lomax’ THE-IN-BETWEEN opens with a curious quote by Marthe Reed: “To reencounter / the inbetween, / we must learn / not only to resee / but also to / rearticulate that / which is seen, / more complexly, / anew.” I mention curious, because the formatting sets up Lomax’ short chapbook exploration/homage of columns, seventeen pages of sentence-breaths without break, each set as a singular band, and each focusing on a different element of what she wishes to explore or articulate as an example of “the in-between.” As the first poem reads:

the-in-between-o

f-my-foot-and-wh

en-it-hits-the-gro

ound-touches-the-

earth-kisses-it-if-

i-am-being-poeti

c-or-particularly-

cheery-the-effect

-of-the-weight-w

here-i-am-heade

d-and-why-plus-

how-much-energ

y-i-take-to-get-th

ere-and-not-fore

going-the-why,-o

f-course,-and-th

e-towhee-song-t

hat-i-do-not-reco

gnize-busy-as-i-

constantly-am-wi

th-human-concer

ns-along-on-the-

way…-all-this-fro

m-the-Sundarba

ns’-increasingly-

vital-perspective-

OH: Poet and publisher Juliet Cook’s contribution is DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS (inside my Black Doll Head Irises) (Blood Pudding Press, 2019), a suite of short poems that move through the meditations and examinations of lyric memoir. The poems in DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS seek to explore and understand gestures, decisions and a sense of balance, including prior relationships, stroke recovery, ageing and depression, and the construction of dolls. “I’m tired of being a last resort,” she writes, in the poem “We haven’t talked in years, but suddenly he wants me again,” continuing: “a suicide hot line inside a middle-aged woman’s body, / stuck on repeat.”

He was tired of hearing about my stroke and my poetry.

From whiplash on the back of the bed stand

to nipple piercings in a biohazard bag.

Dismembered brain

waves

like a broken doll hand.