Janice Lee: Separation Anxiety

five poems from Separation Anxiety

but the settlers
but the felled trees
but the lingering
but the frontier
but the ignored assertion
of killing set forth
in the ancient question
are they able to — ?

human or animal
which is more ancient?
the mutation of one
affects the other
and so, animal
is the newer distinction
our own friendship
is haunted
the animal is a word
time elapsed

appellation
to have already died
to have already admitted
to being ashamed
of being ashamed
foreshadowing mourning
hearing oneself being named
is a little bit
like
the apocalypse
itself

*

an animal looks at me
how to respond?
yes or no

an animal responds
yes or no

*

unmap and vivify

so we can see them
how we are bound by causality

the aim is to shapeshift
rather than to become complacent
in the loop

right
you’re smart
but you’re not awake

the pool
in my journey
was small
I couldn’t track the will
because it was bound up
in so much shadow

no response

no response
is still
a response
is still
information

*

doubled,
as the body
becomes stiff as granite

fair skies:
my apologies for keeping you waiting

*

just how determined
is history
to deteriorate the collaborative survival
and exponentially replicate the precocity
of self:
self as private property
self as containment
self as contaminant
self as toxic chemical
self as global catastrophe
self as fire

what about the borders
between us?
what about them?

which of the following is touch?

) . . . (

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Janice Lee is a Korean-American writer, editor, publisher, and shamanic healer. She is the author of 7 books of fiction, creative nonfiction & poetry: KEROTAKIS (Dog Horn Press, 2010), Daughter (Jaded Ibis, 2011), Damnation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2013), Reconsolidation (Penny-Ante Editions, 2015), The Sky Isn’t Blue (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016), Imagine a Death (The Operating System, 2021), and Separation Anxiety (CLASH Books, 2022). She writes about interspecies communication, plants & personhood, the filmic long take, slowness, the apocalypse, architectural spaces, inherited trauma, and the concept of han in Korean culture, and asks the question, how do we hold space open while maintaining intimacy? She combines shamanic and energetic healing with plant & animal medicine and teaches workshops on inherited trauma, healing, and writing. She is Founder & Executive Editor of Entropy, Co-Publisher at Civil Coping Mechanisms, Contributing Editor at Fanzine, and Co-Founder of The Accomplices LLC. She currently lives in Portland, OR where she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Portland State University.