Poet of the MonthJoanna ValenteOctober 05, 2021Ever Jones, poetry, poet of the month

Ever Jones: October 2021 Poet of the Month

Poet of the MonthJoanna ValenteOctober 05, 2021Ever Jones, poetry, poet of the month

in a world so spun every heart is an enemy

at the flower shop a white father & son select an exceptional

bouquet for mom. they are dressed in full camouflage: desert-meets-

forest-meets-jungle-meets-america-meets-war. the pattern is tooth

and nail, pockets roomy enough for every extinction, each genocide-

attempt. see the grave-trenches honored with wildflowers. if i could

i’d drop this poem into the boy’s pocket, but i fear he’d kill me

for my gender resistant body, for the gentle touch of the unknown

that he will never be allowed

to be

my pen tip is a claw, a nail, and i admit

that i jab myself every day for the admittance

of my body. the violence of non-gender

and the safety of white skin: a heart chamber

seals & releases, seals & releases

did you know that a tusk is a tooth?

an incisor for shadowing the landgrassestrees

i think that teeth have memory in the electric circuit

of their nerves, that nails are graves for the dead

continuously reimagining the matrix of being alive

i am trying to write about school shootings

you see

but my animal body

a tusk lacks enamel, pearly vs. ivory—but has growth rings

around the blood

around the original memory

i think that’s what i mean to say about tenderness

i think that’s what i mean to say about power

Ever Jones (they/them) is a queer/trans poet, essayist and instructor living in Seattle, WA. Their forthcoming poetry collection, nightsong (Sundress Publications), is a transliberatory lyric of politics, nature and identity. They have published two other poetry collections, Wilderness Lessons (futurecycle) and a chapbook, Primitive Elegy (alicebluebooks). Ever won the Grand Prize for the Eco Arts Awards in 2014 & was a finalist for terrain.org’s 2013 poetry contest. They teach poetry and creative nonfiction writing at the University of Washington in Tacoma and are an instructor at Richard Hugo House. Their essays and poetry can be found at Tupelo Quarterly, Poecology, Bellingham Review, terrain.org, Cimarron Review, Columbia Poetry Review, CURA, Written River: A Journal of Eco-Poetics, Five Fingers Review, Whitefish Review and others. Visit their website at everjones.com.