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by Sueyeun Juliette Lee
Never good enough in the multifoliate way of roses, the heart a simple dew for all its layered wraps. Sliced through into its secret releases only hidden spaces and no new forms. What wetness gathers offers. The direction is to be swift, with little or no regard.
The present is tense and convoluted. Strings that tie shift according to the wind’s plastic shape. Every move has a countermove, parting before identified. Intuition or daydreams from the morning’s lightfall, the indirectness of its angles and discretions. I waver in its snaps, attempt to accumulate along the grain. Secret releases a fathoming. It burns off during the day.
We were integral until death parted. A shell closes deep inside its bed, or spoken for buds retract before sighted. What slides in one direction chafes the other standing still. How human, even the way gossamer tears. A new blossom is necessary, is.
Sueyeun Juliette Lee is the author of the poetry collections That Gorgeous Feeling (Coconut Books) and Underground National (Factory School). She edits Corollary Press, a chapbook series devoted to multi-ethnic experimental writing and is a contributing editor of EOAGH. She is at work on her doctoral dissertation examining the nexus between visual arts, critical theory, and Asian American poetry.
If you had to think about your writing in terms of weather, what would the meteorologist say about your poetry? And what would the meteorologist say about my poetry? That’s a tough question, so I’ll apply it to the poem you’re printing. The meteorologist understands the weather and must tell us about it. What she sees is that the sky’s in a tumult. The sun is building a ladder to the ground, and we all have to grope for it. It’s whiskered, covered in dew, and what astonishment! The weather! The meteorologist no longer comprehends her manner of comprehending! She turns to us. Her mouth opens…that is all. My hope is that the meteorologist will stop speaking about the weather and confront it.
Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.
Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.
Submissions
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again March 15, 2025. Submit here.
Upcoming
01/13 • Edward Thomas-Herrera
01/20 • Zero Laforga
01/27 • Jack Bedell
02/03 • TBD
02/10 • Gaurav Bhalla
02/17 • Callie Dean
02/24 • TBD