Savage Pageant: A Genealogy
- Savage Pageant:A Genealogy
When we were little,my sisters (being the youngest, I too) thought the pregnant form was disgusting.Nothing is as plain or crass as expecting: the awkward roundness of past sex on a body-stage and all that skin x stretching xWhat we really wanted wascombustion to burn the deedaround our own real estate. Whatwe really wanted was inelegant: a clean break from the spectacle with gas station snacks and water when we needed.My grandmother had eleven pregnancies and an infection.My mother had four and wished for boys. [End Page 219] Sometimes you can't put all the bonesback where they're supposed to go.
I had a boy and they took you out with a knife. [End Page 220]
Jessica Q. Stark is a mixed-race, Vietnamese poet originally from California. She is a doctoral candidate in English at Duke University where she writes on the intersections of American poetry and comic books. She is the author of three poetry chapbooks, the latest titled Vasilisa the Wise (Ethel Press, 2018). Her chapbook, The Liminal Parade, was selected by Dorothea Lasky for Heavy Feather's Double Take Poetry Prize in 2016. Her poems have appeared in or are forthcoming in Up the Staircase Quarterly, Tupelo Quarterly, Potluck, Glass Poetry Journal, and others. Her first full-length poetry collection, Savage Pageant, is forthcoming with Birds, LLC. She writes an ongoing poetry zine called INNANET and is an Assistant Poetry Editor for AGNI.
