“Compensation” shows itself as a consistent, gendered thread in my life story. Compensating for my other family member’s disappointments to make my mom smile. Compensating for the body I knew I wouldn’t stretch into.
A story in parts A list of things I thought of and had to restrain myself from doing before my grandmother’s funeral Pack shorts and sneakers and a hoodie and my my BLACKLIVESMATTER bracelet and a book into a survival pack
What does genre mean to you and how does it build/unbuild your work? Lauren Russell is the author of What’s Hanging on the Hush (Ahsahta, 2017). She was the 2014-2015 Jay C. and Ruth Halls Poetry Fellow
occasional elements and bodies they make Sunlight, consequence of sun, wakes me. Sweeps slow, roams my skin, my down of hair, the dawn, rising. Spring mornings, graceful, breaking. Waking, consequence of sleep—sleep of waking. Today i may
Pluto If we were starfish (who can regenerate limbs), what would trauma be? A limb lost. And still we would be two of us, would become many from the breaking off of one. Here’s the central disc: have you known yourself to