My Body Is a Poem I Can’t Stop Writing is a body-confessional, an investigation of body in pleasure, in darkness, in touching, alone, medicated, in treatment, in sickness, in losing, in ashes, in poem. “It’s all real, and I can’t keep / anything private.” Intimacy is what is offered here, an unflinching look into the private, sometimes quiet moments of a body. “When I look in the mirror, I can’t stop looking.” In this micro chapbook of poems, we look with her. (Porkbelly Press, 2017) » available in our shop
excerpt
My Body Is a Poem I Can’t Stop Writing
On pony island, women’s striped nylon
suits disappear into vulvas & hairy
bikini lines. Silt slips out the sides
as they pull away wet fabric.
I draw two big breasts in the sand,
round shoulders, seashell necklace.
She takes off her pants, head
above black waves, my legs rocking
under a cloudy sky. I have this fear
or fascination that I’ll keep walking
into the ocean, a spoonful of saltwater
swallowed is just enough for someone
who’s never learned to swim. In the future,
we won’t need facemasks, oxygen tanks,
all that. Scientists invent new things
everyday—flower sound, teleportation,
artificial hearts, etcetera. I could dip
my head in the water, bounce weightless
in the earth’s placenta. Let a rip current
take me out and pull me under.
about the poet
Kelly Lorraine Andrews’ poems have appeared or are forthcoming in PANK, Prick of the Spindle, SELFISH, and IDK magazine, among others. She is the author of the chapbooks The Fear Archives (Two of Cups Press), I Want To Eat So Many Kinds of Cake With You and Mule Skinner (both from Dancing Girl Press). Recently, she graduated from the University of Pittsburgh’s MFA program in poetry. She co-edits the online journal Pretty Owl Poetry and curates its Pittsburgh reading series. Additional information about her publications, along with a slideshow of her cats, can be found at kellyandrewspoetry.com.
about the cover artist
Jessica Earhart is a visual artist based in Pittsburgh, PA. Collage has been her primary medium for over a decade, where she finds satisfaction in its impulsivity, limitations, and as an expressive way to problem solve. Through creating surrealist art, she attempts to understand the human experience while addressing feminist themes. Her collage work has consisted of stand-alone pieces and series, zines and comics. Her work can be found at themedialuna.com.
acknowledgements
Pieces in this chapbook originally appeared in Arsenic Lobster, Love Me, Love My Belly, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Profane.
micro reviews & blurbs
“Kelly Lorraine Andrews’ chapbook, My Body Is A Poem I Can’t Stop Writing asks its reader to consider the ways in which the body holds memory, the body mirrors its lovers and relationships, the body knows when to break or hold on, especially when it continues to drown. Andrews wanders the interstitial space of body, theology, and history and asks her readers to look at the poet’s body, bone-naked, on the page. Most importantly, Andrews transverses the holiness of the body in all its gore and kinkiness.” —Minadora Macheret, author of Love Me, Anyway (Porkbelly Press, 2018)
books from other presses
The Fear Archives (Two of Cups Press, 2017)
I want to eat so many kinds of cake with you (dancing girl press, 2016)
Mule Skinner (dancing girl press, 2014)
Porkbelly Press 