Lauds
by Jen Huang
All I ask for
in a day
is zero blood.
I want our hides whole
and untrespassed.
and no inner gambits,
faulty, giving up the ghost,
red plumes to write her name
across your history
The tidy monstrosity
that is the body,
working to clean up
its own mistakes
I want
none of this,
closed doors
and sealed windows.
The sun at its set distance,
each bone assuring bone.
Jen Schalliol Huang lives near Boston and received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her chapbook was printed through The Kenyon Review, and her work has appeared in Flock, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, RHINO, The Shore, Shenandoah, Sou’wester, and elsewhere. She is a reader for [PANK], was nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize, twice for Best New Poets, and once for 2020’s Best of the Net.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Lauds”? “Lauds” originated after a year of miscarriages. I took notes and wrote down lines at the time, which is a practice I’ve had for decades now. More recently, I came back to these files to see what scraps could be developed further. This poem felt like an invocation, a wish for the day, and so I titled it with a name for ritual morning prayers. “Lauds” can also mean praises, in a certain context, but the speaker isn’t here to exalt anything — not the body nor survival, not the external world nor refuge, not even the passing of time. Nonetheless, there is a sense of security returning to the body of the poem, which is, ultimately, the object of the speaker’s hope.
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Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.
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Submissions
Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again September 15, 2025. Submit here.
Upcoming
09/15 • Abbie Doll
09/22 • Karen Regen Tuero
09/29 • Amy Speace
10/06 • Jennifer Edwards
10/13 • Joseph O’Day
10/20 • Carolyn Zaikowski
10/27 • Sunmisola Odusola
11/03 • Sara Cassidy
11/10 • Liz Abrams-Morley
11/17 • Alison Colwell
11/24 • Lucy Zhang
12/01 • TBD
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12/15 • TBD
12/22 • TBD
12/29 • TBD
11/17 • TBD
11/24 • TBD
12/01 • TBD
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12/29 • TBD