from Kameelah Janan Rasheed’s “How to Suffer Politely (And Other Etiquette for the Lumpenproletariat)”
in spring of 2014 you hear Alice Notley read for the first time in your life. because it’s spring, you wear the wrong things and end up with a pile of cardigans and scarves piled at your feet and tucked into your armpits. you drink champagne because you were, at the time, in a depression. hours earlier, the day of the reading, you had seen Alice in front of a Popeye’s in Bed-Stuy. you couldn’t be sure but you were sure; it was her. you felt it, and it was a strange thing to feel. the day after the Notley reading, you find a brick wall near your apartment and write out in capital mint-colored letters the only thing you remember from her reading: “I DON’T HAVE A PLAN/ I HAVE A VOICE.” you don’t know why you do it but you do it. this feels important.
a few weeks before the Alice Notley sighting, you go to a colleague’s poetry reading at Unnameable Books. afterward they are going to the Copula reading at Wendy’s Subway—they ask if you want to join. you want to and don’t want to—something feels off—and ultimately walk home sulking. you don’t know how to make friends and this has become a problem. you feel shy. or are you distrustful? people make you nervous and exhausted. especially poetry people—the possibility for false intimacy is high. to ease your anxiety, you tell yourself you would have just gotten drunk at Copula and would be hungover the next day. you know what that space is like. later in the night, you get a few texts telling you to come to Copula but you don’t. the moon is full inside you like a knowing thing. Continue reading →
“[Birds of Lace] is influenced by the spirit of cunty women, criminal queers, wild open waters and DIY opulence.” – Birds of Lace Editor Gina Abelkop talks with ENTROPY in the latest edition of their small press interview series.
