post-father's day feelings & poems
DEAD DAD Do Not Read!! I mean, please read. but you've been warned. *father by the front bottoms plays softly in background*
(psst— skip below the first subscribe button to avoid dead dad talks!)
This might have been the least terrible I’ve felt on father’s day in a minute. Playing a really fun Pathfinder session with my favorite people instead of moping all day likely helped. But also, the third Sunday in June somehow got easier once my dad died? The relationship can’t get any more estranged than this, no?
I came across this poem “One Year After My Dying Father and I Stop Speaking to Each Other Again” by Eugenia Leigh in Split This Rock over the father’s day weekend and WOW. “Everyone I have lost / I have lost before the end.” I’m putting a second link because you need to read this, like, now.
The sick thing about coping through poetry is that my dad loved literature. Like, a lot. So whenever I find a poem like the one above that really hits, I just wish I could show it to him. I’m told this is a common grief thing. I wrote a weird little prose poem about it (the feeling but a different medium) that HAD published in October, “I Want to Watch Degrassi with My Dead Dad.”
If it’s not obvious by now, I am so hungry for this type of literature right now. Memorial by (badass Texan!) Bryan Washington and OBIT by Victoria Chang filled that void for me after my dad died. Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby is doing the same this month.
It is such a weird thing to grieve someone before and after they die.
Mini Succession corner (spoilers abound— skip to below the subscribe button to avoid): the not-so-hot, white feminist takes after the finale were plentiful. Lol. So I’ve been waiting to express my thoughts on it. I didn’t necessarily care for any of these characters throughout the series, but the dead dad shit made me cry almost every episode. In a selfish selfish way, I just… kept thinking about the way my own voice broke during the two sentences I said at my dad’s memorial service. I kept thinking about how death liberates in a very frightening way, especially when you’ve been abused. I’m just going to sit with that for a moment.
I think it’s time for regularly scheduled trans and/or literary links:
Yesterday was Juneteenth— consider donating to Black Trans Advocacy Coalition &/or Black Trans Travel Fund &/or people directly in your community
Split Lip Magazine’s June issue is live! You gotta read Crystal Odelle’s flash memoir “Gray Rainbow,” and I gotta brag that I fell in love with this piece months ago <3
LittlePuss Press is having a sale on two incredible books!! I can’t wait to read Cecilia Gentili’s Faltas once I’m done with all this moving nonsense.
fifth wheel press is open for subs for their dreamland anthology
My website got a little update, shout out to nat raum!
Recent and ongoing reads:
Boy’s Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky - best graphic novel I’ve read, maybe ever??? Think The Hangover meets final girl meets trans anticapitalist commentary
K. Iver’s Short Film Starring My Beloved’s Red Bronco - check out the title poem here
jason b crawford’s Year of the Unicorn Kidz - I was able to spend time learning about queer ekphrasis with them at the Sundress Trans/Nonbinary Retreat and it was incredible, eye-opening, all the things.
We Want It All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics ed. by Andrea Abi-Karam and Kay Gabriel - two-person book club is going strong!
Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin - I’m not super far into it yet, but it’s just as good as I’ve heard
The Late Americans by Brandon Taylor - God. Is this my favorite novel of 2023? Signs point to OBVIOUSLY.
Music on repeat:
New Slaughter Beach, Dog single!! “Strange Weather” is so so good. Can’t wait to see how SBD keeps evolving.
New Front Bottoms single, “Punching Bag,” that sounds sooo much like “Flashlight”!!
David y Fernando & Solido’s cover, “La Razon.” Y’all. My emo Tejana heart can barely take this.
Slowly watching:
The new Black Mirror is alright! First two episodes pretty much had the quality and twists I expected.
Naruto Shippuden - we finally finished season 1!! I only cried a few times!!
Stay tuned for news from
and a full-blown newsletter about what I read during pride month! (Spoiler: no cishets are on this list)<3
You may have noticed that I added a paid option for this newsletter. If you subscribe as a founding member I’ll send you a zine grab bag! But I promise trans poetica will always always remain free. “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”