"The Rules of the Game: If you follow these rules, no harm can come to you. It is important to remember these rules. This game relies on your memory. How much can you remember?"
"An enduring poem engaged with ecopoetics does more than comment on the natural world; it finds a way to evoke and challenge the senses and intellect of the reader." Juliana Roth on ecotone, ecopoetics, and the role of the environmental writer.
Jesi Bender is an artist from Upstate New York whose first book, The Book the Last Word, was published in spring, 2019 from Whisk(e)y Tit. Her shorter work has appeared in Split Lip, Lunch Ticket, and The Rumpus, among others.
"our lot was labor / & liquor / made us feel bigger / than monstrosities, sooty / for the tazing / amoebic cancerous darlings / whispers from lineage to lineage, / clutching their pain..."
"The blast rattled my teeth and rib cage. It pushed on the air in my lungs. In the time it took for the concussed dust to settle, I worried I’d loosened the grid..."
"When I’ve felt casualty creeping toward me I’ve never reached / for the gospel. Instead perhaps a fire or a dance. In this way / I know I am heretic— a dirtier flavor watching bones and papers..."