Poetry by E. Fox

Ink & Lead 

I’m too afraid to be that of the bold permanence. 
Afraid to be the spilled ink seeped into the bones of a page. 
Etched not only into the surface but run deep into one’s core. 
With the daring stance of unwavering line after line. 
Forever waiting to be scrutinized and yet still stay unchanged. 
Never truly able to be erased. 
Meekly covered in an attempt to be conformed. 
All I ever will be is the faded lead. 
The blended marks left on the page. 
Standing alone in despair. 
Left for others disposal. 
Bringing the weight of everything sinking down. 
Drowning to the bottomless pit of one’s mind. 
Blackened with the ink pressed over my skin. 
Seeing what is left in my wake. 
Only after I’ve been erased. 
 

Flesh Filled Face 

You know that feeling when you see another beautiful person 
And you can’t help but touch your own delicate skin in response 
I can’t help but notice that mine is not so delicate 
Not so beautiful 
It feels as a softer mask waiting to be peeled from the bone 
The flesh sits atop my skull in mock disguise 
Seeing another beautiful person only makes me realize that I am not that 
I am only a faceless entity waiting to truly figure out who I am 
 

A Role, Not a Model 

My dad never loved me, I know it 
He liked me when I was just a small child 
Until I got older and then 
Then he didn’t even like me 
I realize now it wasn’t hate when I was growing up 
It was only dislike 
It became hate as I aged more and more 
But once I was “old enough,” 
He started to like me once again 
Or at least what he could make me to be 
He liked that I didn’t like “her” 
But he never realized I hated him too 
It was almost in the same way he did me 
But I was so much younger 
I just wanted to be happy and loved 
He never accepted my choices 
They weren’t his, so neither was I 
Even now it is the same 
It always has been 
And always will be 


Copyright © E. Fox. All rights reserved. 
 
Fox is an Indigenous aspiring poet from the Arikara and Lakota-Sioux Nations who was born and raised in North Dakota. They have been a lover of books & reading from a very young age, always searching for more to fulfill themself with as time has gone forward. Their published works can be seen featured in Yellow Medicine Review's 2023 Fall Edition. Fox's motivation in writing stems from their want to reach all communities and show the ability along with the importance of Native American & LGBTQ+ youths' writing about the experiences of growing up & coming of age. Fox is currently a recent high school graduate with the hopes of transitioning to a career in creative writing through workshops and apprenticeships. With every gained experience, they are working on a collection of poetry with aspirations to soon publish a book of their own that will help take off their career in writing.

Pick a Garnet to Sleep In

by Kim Shuck

We are hunting the graveyards and 
Practicing fly-casting off of the roof at 4am 
It must be summer 
I paint the symbols on my feet 
Study the evolution of bats and 
21st century poetry of the 600 block of Chenery 
Oh child 
I braid you into my hair most days 
And I’m the only one who can read you there 
But then 
We are descended from the symbolic dead and 
I’m becoming the old woman out of those stories 
If not as quickly as I’d hoped 

Copyright © 2024 Kim Shuck. All rights reserved.
 
Kim Shuck loves fiddling with words and puzzles and stones. Shuck served as the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco and is still recovering. Her latest book is Pick a Garnet to Sleep In.



Yugtarvik: A Tʌndrə’d Glimp

by Alice Rose Crow ~ Maar’aq 
 
Alice Rose Crow ~ Maar’aq is among the kass’ayagat of the Kusquqvaq diaspora. She is an independent maker based in Anchorage, Alaska. For the Covid-19-year of 2021, the Anchorage Museum at Rasmuson Center invited Alice to curate a series of creative interpretations to augment ongoing efforts to examine archived collections. A mutual and consolatory goal is to bring attention and reflection to little known and overlooked elements living within the Anchorage Yugtarvik.3 An inclination is to keep stepping toward broadened and deepened groundedness, mutual acknowledgment, contemplation, engagement, understanding, deep dialogue, and sharing among First Alaskans, relatives, migrants, expats, and allanret4 across generations, languages, and amid evolving cultures, technologies, and world views. 
 
Her mixed form 2021 collection commissioned by the Anchorage Museum,Yugtarvik: A Tʌndrə’d Glimp, is available via the yugtarvik’s website.

Yugtarvik: A Tʌndrə’d Glimp is also available for direct digital download: 

Unpapered: Writers Consider Native American Identity and Cultural Belonging


Edited by Diane Glancy and Linda Rodriguez 


Unpapered is a collection of personal narratives by Indigenous writers exploring the meaning and limits of Native American identity beyond its legal margins. Native heritage is neither simple nor always clearly documented, and citizenship is a legal and political matter of sovereign nations determined by such criteria as blood quantum, tribal rolls, or community involvement. Those who claim a Native cultural identity often have family stories of tenuous ties dating back several generations. Given that tribal enrollment was part of a string of government programs and agreements calculated to quantify and dismiss Native populations, many writers who identify culturally and are recognized as Native Americans do not hold tribal citizenship. 
 
Unpapered charts how current exclusionary tactics began as a response to “pretendians”—non-indigenous people assuming a Native identity for job benefits—and have expanded to an intense patrolling of identity that divides Native communities and has resulted in attacks on peoples’ professional, spiritual, emotional, and physical states. An essential addition to Native discourse, Unpapered shows how social and political ideologies have created barriers for Native people truthfully claiming identities while simultaneously upholding stereotypes.

César Love Poetry

Four Corners 
 
you share with me a picture of your sunset 
I would give one back to you 
But my balcony faces east
 
instead, I offer you 
A midnight 
dawn
And noon
 
three corners of the sky 
with your sunset, they are four 
one diamond of the night and day 
 

Orange 
In the grocery store aisle
one belly button orange with a scar 
others pristine, unblemished 
others soon to be sold
 
Between perfect sisters 
one unbidden sphere 
branded by two discolored inches 
not to be held 
not to be tasted
 
A globe passed over 
oceans never plunged 
forests never inhaled 
landscapes never painted
 
A world unfathomed 
with a navel and a canyon scar 
is the canyon east or west?
north or south? 
perhaps along her belly 
or across a breast
maybe against her cheek. 
 

Moonlight at Noon 
The Moon, My Shadow, and I make Three. – Li Po 
 
I would bake on this planet 
If not for the Moon I invited 
She agreed to let me keep her 
Tucked beneath my blouse 
Her cool face against my belly 

I lounge in her quiet 
I swim in her well 
I bloom in her sanity 
 
The Moon brought me a friend 
One who used to follow me 
She mimicked my every movement 
At first she flattered me 
Then she mocked me 
Finally, she ran away 
I screamed at her, 
Come back here! 
I tried to put a leash on her 
But she was too smart 
I threw a plum at her 
Of course, she thew one back 
We did this for months 
Then the Moon told me her name 
 

The Poet’s Tent 
North or South, she travels 
Always with her tent. 
On chosen ground, 
She slides its rods into the earth.
 
She places cloth on its frame. 
A cloth she imagined 
Something like a Mexican rebozo 
Something like an Amish quilt 
A cloth that exchanges colors 
That switches latticework 
Cloth that vibrates to the heartbeat of deer 
Cloth that answers the whispers of trees
 
The poet smooths the floor 
She unrolls her carpet 
Psychic knots detach from its tendrils: 
abandoned theories 
dropped desires 
jettisoned memories. 
They pulse on her floor. 
Soon to transform 
Soon to become 
feral opals 
protean metals 
iris crystals. 

She prepares the door 
Butterflies of every stripe arrive 
 
© César Love. All rights reserved. 
 
Cesar Love is a Latino poet influenced by the Asian masters. A resident of San Francisco’s Mission District, he is also an editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. He is the author of Birthright and While Bees Sleep. cesarlovepoetry.yolasite.com

For Q

by Kim Shuck 
 
Pull on a different mountain range 
One leg at a time 
You time travel in poem 
He told me 
I've seen you do it 
We went relic spotting 
More than once 
Through the line up of the '53 Dodgers 
Before his heart was broken 
Before his heart was broken 
Memories never sit as neatly in a prong setting 
As a heart solitaire 
Memories never sit as neatly 
 
Kim Shuck is the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco Emerita. Shuck is solo author of 9 books, co-authored one, edited another ten and has contributed to a vast array of anthologies, journals, curriculum guides, tours, and protests. www.kimshuck.com

River, Blood, And Corn Literary Journal: A Community of Voices

If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive.—Barry Lopez, in Crow and Weasel
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