12/21/2024

Drowning in Coats: 2024 in Review

2024 is closing its great, heavy eyelids. This vast and impossible giant of a year, its great belly swelling and shrinking with each dwindling breath, lays before me. I can truly say this creature has exhausted, delighted, saved, and slaughtered me so many times over. When I say my friend and fellow writer June recount her year’s creative undertakings, I decided I needed to pay my own respects.

It’s hard to believe that it was only January that I managed to publish my first poem under my name. A love letter to my girlfriend’s top surgery scars, “Untitled” was a fitting omen for the year ahead. I had fully and truly fallen back in love with poetry, writing as much as I could. I also started performing as much as I could. To that end, let’s get into what I got up to this year.

Write Club ATL

I was invited by my friend to participate in this staple of Atlanta’s live lit scene. Throughout the evening, writers are pitted against each other and given diametrically opposed prompts (Hot vs. Cold, Come vs. Go, etc.) and the victor is determined by applause. I was given “Boil” vs. my opponent’s “Simmer.” I took it as an opportunity to write about Phlegethon, the boiling river of blood from Dante’s Inferno (and, in turn, write about violence, transness, love, and the rapidly expanding transphobia of American politics). Performing an essay live in front of such a responsive audience was an incalculable joy. The joy was apparently mutual, as I returned home with a tiny trophy and an invitation back this month. Now I have two tiny trophies.

PUBLISH US & Hundred Pitchers of Honey

In the new year I wanted to pursue publishing. I felt like I had enough of a backlog and enough confidence in my writing that I could return to something competitive. To that end, I took to social media. Around March and April, in anticipation of the National Poetry Month challenge, I reached out to a mutual for mutual feedback and accountability. We decided to start a discord group and invite some more friends. Now the PUBLISH US discord is going strong with four members desperately trying to keep each other sane. We were colleagues at first, but then we were all invited to read our pieces in the Hundred Pitchers of Honey National Poetry Month celebration reading on Zoom. Each of us were to read a piece or two amongst a host of other talented writers. When we “rehearsed” our poems we ended up doing bits and goofing off for most of it. That’s when we became friends.

Joy Deficit

In April, I also ended up reading some poems as part of a show called Joy Deficit hosted my comedy heavyweight and Atlanta legend Gina Rickicki. The show is centered around filling up the reserves of joy that are drained by modern living. Each individual is layered with a theme. I applied for the show themed on “comfort” and read poems about trans joy and romance. It was an exquisite pleasure to perform around musicians, puppeteers, other writers, and acts so esoteric they defied genre. It’s a stage and a group I loved so much that I’ve been back as many times as I can schedule and as often as they’ll have me.

The Z Word with Lindsay King-Miller

In June, just in time for Pride, my friend Lindsay made her fiction-writing debut with her horror action apocalypse romp of a novel, The Z-Word. When I told my favorite bookstore about the book, they leapt at the chance to host a reading and conversation with Lindsay. When it was time to fill the other seat in the conversation, I offered up some names, but ultimately Lindsay asked if I would do it. Despite writing and messaging for literal years, this would be the first time in ages we ever spoke to each other with our voices. We talked horror, problematic queerness, and I embarrassed myself praising her absolutely kickass book. You should buy it.

What Was Eaten Was Given Release Party

This year’s crowning achievement for me was the release of my debut poetry collection What Was Eaten Was Given with my publisher, Kith books. The book was such a massive labor of organization, writing, compilation, and creative stamina that to finally release it into the world was like the heaviest and most satisfying sigh. Then, shortly after, I was privileged enough to be a featured reader at my favorite bookstore, Charis Books to launch it. All my friends, my girlfriend, and family came to support me. I felt like the prettiest girl in the world, like a princess. I still do.

Monster Show for Monsters

One of the best times you can have in Atlanta is at the Monster Show for Monsters. With monthly variety shows featuring burlesque, drag, music, and comedy all celebrating monsters and queerness and fearless self-expression, it’s a riot of a time. Hosted by undead roller skate waiter Boris Karhop and inter-dimensional playing card demon Jack of Diamonds, the show consistently delivers experimental, engaging and often hilarious work. I was given the chance to read some of my cannibal love poetry in the persona of The Bog Librarian of Chanterelle, Georgia:

After the library sank into the bog, the head librarian of Chanterelle, GA survived by getting stranger. She learned to breathe mud, to drink blood, and to read and write the kind of poems that should never breach the surface. Lucky for you, she has crawled free of the muck to read these forbidden texts to shock you, to horrify you, and to turn you on.

It was an absolute blast to be able to read alongside these weirdos. I’d love to do it again sometime.

Chit Chat Club

This year has also been devoted to writing poems about my breasts for a possible collection. Inspired by artists like Henri Riviere and Hokusai, I decided to dedicate my time to capturing ekphrastic moments of my changing body in poems. When I found out The Bakery, an arts organization here in Atlanta, was hosting salons where people could talk about their craft, I pitched them a talk about my tit poem project. Sharing the stage with talks on Marionettes, Marvel theme park rides, and jiu jitsu, it felt a little silly to talk about my breasts, but luckily everyone seemed on board.

Horrors We Desire

Lastly, I applied to perform alongside burlesque acts and performers once again, this time for a one-off night of performances all about the Monsters We Love. Naturally I wrote about falling in love with The Fly from the The Fly. As the only non-burlesque performer, I felt incredibly awkward but incredibly lucky to wedge my little love letter in between stripteases from Lestat from Interview With a Vampire and Oogie Boogie from Nightmare Before Christmas.

To conclude, I offer you this:

There’s a story about the Ancient Greek lawmaker, Draco, about how he solicited support from his people when his strict and punitive laws were called into question. The people offered their support by flinging their hats and coats and cloaks at the lawmaker’s feet. The love they had for Draco was so overwhelming, however, that they smothered the lawmaker, drowning him in comfort and love and coats and hats until he suffocated. That’s the myth of how the man died.

This year, choked with shows and support and poems and people and love, has felt like that. I’m exhausted and burnt out and frail as fine china, but, my God, I am grateful.

My God, I am warm.

Yours with an open mouth,

-B