how wild & soft you are
how wild & soft you are (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016)

how wild & soft you are (Hermeneutic Chaos Press, 2016) is a real thing you can now take home & read.  » $9 (S&H included) » Want to hear us read?

Part of the gift that a collaboration offers is a glimpse into the stunning architectures of of the memories hunted down, narrative paths that unravel the consequences of stumbling upon them, and perspectives that speak for each other. All these flourish on the pages of how wild and soft you are, the second collaborative effort of Hilda Weaver, Nicci Mechler, Wendy Creekmore and Kristin Koester. These powerful poems incorporate language that both explores and transcends as it bursts into a landscape crowded with the rich music of consonants and vowels and a poignant, searing imagery that offers no easy epiphany.

A N   E X C E R P T

I Can’t Always Speak The Language

of birds flocking southward.
Fat clouds confuse my tongue,
pulling my poems out to bury them at the foot
of a Kentucky Coffeetree. Breathe in.

The story behind our teeth will push loose—
keep your sight on the horizon.
Dusk-pink day brings with it a cleansing rush of deer
and quail rise to the now-full moon. They cup

their wings for a skid-landing across
a nameless pond and settle in,
clustered masses on smooth glass—
white bellies pressed into the sky.

 

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in these cups (dancing girl press, 2016)

in these cups is our chapbook of  collaborative poems, written over a multiple-day retreat in the hills of Prospect, Kentucky, published by Chicago based dancing girl press.  $7

Wild Soft makes her home on the banks of the Ohio River. Her work appears in Stone Telling, Wild Quarterly and Room. She is the collaboration of poets Nicci Mechler, Hilda Weaver, Wendy Creekmore, & Kristin Koester. 

Sample poem:

TO KNEEL AT ROCK WALLS

and hollowed trunks,
this is what I dream—
but what becomes my knees swollen, swallowed
with art of trees. Here

to find what lies
behind the branches of our hearts.
It is cold outside—
so chilly in this house that the tea towels
have holes gnawed up for a mouse nest.

The pine floor creaks with knowing.
I hear the ting-ting of snow
on the thin tin roof. My thoughts wander
to the Labyrinth inside me,
and it’s not concentric yet.

Pushcart Nomination & Print/Online Appearances by Wild Soft poems

Since our last note about Stone Telling, our work has appeared in:

Wild Quarterly (a fairly new online mag all about collaborations)

Room (a fantastic, longstanding feminist print mag from Canada) issue 37.4

Still (a really lovely journal of Appalachian work) – several pieces & a small write-up on our process!

Our work is forthcoming from:

three drops from a cauldron (in online & print editions)

We’re quite honored (frankly thrilled) to say we’ve been nominated for a PUSHCART PRIZE by three drops from a cauldron.

Stone Telling issue 10

Stone Telling issue 10

Stone Telling just released its 10th issue, Body. We’re fortunate enough to have one of our very first collaborative poems in this issue. At the time it was submitted, it was called #003, and it’s also forthcoming in our DGP chapbook, in these cups, as “To Kneel at Rock Walls.” We’re pleased to credit Stone Telling with this poem’s first appearance.

The beautiful introduction to the issue, by Rose & Shweta, is pasted below:

Speaking about the body is a radical act. The body – with its ills, idiosyncrasies and secrets, its daring, its slow or rapid disintegration; the body that is beauty of old age and the pain in bones; the labored, uncertain gasping for air that supercedes all other desires. The body and the passions of it; the shame that is societally circumscribed and weighs us down like chains; the mind, which is a part of the body, in all its brilliance and defeat. Stone Telling poets have long been in dialogue with the body. The body dancing and at rest, the body wounded and healing, the body clothed in words or stripped bare. The body fat, thin, unapologetic, apologetic, too angry to be shy, not angry enough, the body that crosses boundaries, the body that says “I am here, see me, see me,” the body that whispers, “move on, there is nothing to see”.

Please have a look at the issue—let us know what you think. (If you want.)

We’d love to hear from you.

Working

It’s been many weeks since we heard we’ll be joining the ranks of Dancing Girl Press‘ 2014 line of chapbooks with our first chap, in these cups, and we’re still just as excited about it today as we were upon the opening of that email. (If you haven’t experienced the selections offered there, you’re missing out.) There’s some serious feminist work happening at DGP. The aesthetic is delicate and sometimes ass kicking: from fireflies to red-winged warrior women.

We kept it under wraps until just before the weekend of our last retreat, so pretty much the moment we made our announcement, we got to work on our second chapbook manuscript (a selection of poems we’re calling how wild and soft you are).

A few poems from that collection are circulating as we continue with our individual projects. Maybe we’ll see you in some submission boxes. 🙂