New York, I’ll be reading from My Ariel October 24 at Poet’s House. Come out if you can. Would love to see you all!
Author Archives: Sina
My Ariel
I caught the first copy of My Ariel as it slid off the glue machine a few weeks back. My son caught the second (see video below!). The book is alive and kicking–pub date is officially September 18th, which happens by chance to be my mother’s birthday. This is more relevant than I thought it would be when I began my project of engaging with Plath’s Ariel. Initially the poems were quite close to Plath’s–re-visions, ghostings, confrontations, and responses—but that changed over time. There are a lot of the earlier ones in the book still, but certainly not all of them. Thanks to Coach House and Ingrid Paulson for an amazing design. There is also a hardcover edition but I haven’t seen that yet.
Here are a few earlier versions. With thanks to all the editors!
“Tulips,” Concrete & River
“The Jailor,” The Walrus
“Death & Co,” The Awl
“I am no Lady, Lazarus,” Rusty Toque
“Little Fugue,” The Awl
“Thalidomide,” “The Rabbit Catcher,” The Malahat Review
“Couriers,” “Cut,” Poetry
MxT wins ReLit
I can’t believe I didn’t post this–it was amazing news. I’m totally chuffed. Thanks to the judges, and to Kenneth J. Harvey for founding the prize. The company is stellar.
Death & Co.
The latest from My Ariel is up. Thanks to Mark Bibbins at The Awl.
The dead bell, the dead bell
Every Christ a clap of bad behaviour,
Ballsy as Blake, a birthmark
Of meat, a red frill of privilege.Baby eaters all, a sweet girl
In a white cage. Such a useful future
Looming, the men at the door of thirteen
Waiting for the right moment.
Here’s the entire poem.
The Jailor
The latest poem from my new Plath manuscript is up at The Walrus. Thanks to Damian Rogers for choosing it. If they look familiar, they should be: they are re-visions, ghostings, confrontations, and responses to Sylvia Plath’s Ariel.
“The Jailor,” The Walrus
“I am no Lady, Lazarus,” Rusty Toque
“Little Fugue,” The Awl
“Thalidomide,” “The Rabbit Catcher,” The Malahat Review
“Couriers,” “Cut,” Poetry
New Poems Up
Several poems from My Ariel, my new manuscript, are up across the Internet. If they look familiar, they should be: they are re-visions, ghostings, confrontations, and responses to Sylvia Plath’s Ariel. I’ll be writing more about the project (like why on earth, and are you insane?), but not until next summer, when I have some time to do so. Meanwhile I’ll polish, take notes, and gather the links here. The first few earlier versions appeared in The Fiddlehead, which I can’t link to. I didn’t quite know what I was up to with those, but they were the gateway. More anon, and with thanks to all the editors!
“I am no Lady, Lazarus,” Rusty Toque
“Little Fugue,” The Awl
“Thalidomide,” “The Rabbit Catcher,” The Malahat Review
“Couriers,” “Cut,” Poetry
MxT reviewed over at Poetry
MxT generates its force through the perpetual denial of this promise. Over and over, the poems present a detached and clinical façade, only to have it break down or prove useless. For example, “A Manual for Remembering” instructs the reader on ways to encounter memory while remaining safe and insulated: “When remembering it is best to wear pants without cuffs, boots, gloves, safety glasses and a feeling helmet (shade 10 or higher).” As the poem progresses, however, these instructions become increasingly elaborate, fantastic, or impossible:
Never touch a banana slug, or cedar melting like lava. Beware of a failed city tumbling into the bowl of an upturned tree. If ferns adorning each dull ache are wet, apply a Cowichan sweater zipped up to the first branch.
The constant reminders to guard against memory reinforce its dangers, and our inability to follow the directions suggests that no amount of precaution can truly protect us.
Read it here, along with reviews of Fanny Howe, Dororthea Lasky and Joanne Diaz. Thanks to Poetry and Rebecca Hazelton.
