Month: January 2018

Our eighth installment consists of two poems by Elissa H. Nelson. This pairing raises provocative questions about why many women today still “get burned,” so to speak, even when they are right. Moreover, why are many women conditioned to blame themselves for encounters lacking traction? Quietly haunting, Nelson’s poems speak to our current sociopolitical moment. *** Branded My path is cut off by another driver But the sun is blazing I honk the horn beneath the scalding emblem Burning my hand My palm pulls back But he is wrong I pound the scorching wheel again Burning my skin My arm jerks away But I am right I slam the searing symbol once more Burning my self   About Midnight I sit in the car waiting to go inside. When I do, I’ll hear the door close and lock behind me. The key is out of the ignition and in my hand. The car door is open, but there’s no beeping just the sounds of night. Crickets chirp, and trucks whir on the highway nearby. Some horn blares somewhere, but not too loud from here. Some motorcycle engine revs, all in the distance. My car’s clicking and ticking slow, the creaks stop. It’s cooling down quickly or maybe I’ve been sitting here longer than I think. But still I sit, and listen to a neighbor’s air conditioner turn on. I...

This seventh installment features John Beaton’s “Valet Parking.” The poem is at once delightfully hyperbolic and a plausible depiction of the toxic masculinity we’ve come to associate with high-rolling leaders in all walks of life. “Valet Parking” also enacts a cultural revenge fantasy in the second person–positioning readers to watch, judge, and unexpectedly identify with the downfall of a man who ostensibly differs so much from us. *** Valet Parking Lamborghinis, Maseratis, Jaguars, and Beemers, Aston Martins, Morgans, Bentleys, Ferraris slick and sleek— your car makes you superior to your sandal-slapping neighbor who scrubs his Saab religiously on the Saab-bath day each week. You drive to where you’re worshiped, to the Hilton or Umberto’s, up to the altar where they bow—your alter ego’s waiting to touch the throaty thoroughbred with which you’ve graced his chancel. You leave it idling, sidle past, and bask in his adulating. Your back’s turned and his foot’s down. Yes! It’s right down to the floor, but only for a hundred yards—this isn’t Arizona. Tires screech in yawing fishtail swerves, which scare him to a crawl— but now that thrill will always bless his econobox persona. Now he can dream of being you, of pedal to the metal of scorching down the carriageway—a hundred and fifty or bust, head braced against the G-force, hood pointed to the skyline, wheels sprinting from their haunches in one great macho thrust....