2021 Poetry Series
Neon Hemlock Press is pleased to announce the works chosen for our 2021 Poetry Series: mouth by jo reyes-boitel and who is owed springtime by Rasha Abdulhadi. Editor Saida Agostini chose works that confront the cost of survival.
Agostini chose mouth because it “offers a precise accounting of patriarchal violence, a complicated constellation that cannot be cut down or anesthetized for anyone's comfort. This work is a dare, a challenge to those who would rather turn away from truth. As they write, Those who try to love me cannot swallow my entirety. If you are lucky you will choke on my hips. We are lucky to be blessed with this witness.”
Regarding who is owed springtime, Agostini found that, “these poems are an astonishing treatise on desire, and the startlingly thin line between fear and pleasure. Rasha Abdulhadi fearlessly plumbs the contours of multigenerational trauma, joy and pleasure, and comes back singing with the lessons of a hard won journey: I learned what the light of giving too much reveals.”
Learn more about both authors here.
Each of these chapbooks will be printed in a limited run of 100, shipping in May 2021.
Edited 5/20/21 to add: While we are excited about the arrival of these chapbooks, the urgent movement for liberation in Palestine continues. As an offering to Palestinian communities and all in solidarity, Rasha is releasing their out-of-print 2017 microchapbook, Shell Houses (The Head & the Hand Press). You can download it here—it's free, now and forever, like Palestine should be. -dr
A 5”x5” chapbook from the 2021 Neon Hemlock Poetry Series edited by Saida Agostini. 62 pages. Published May 2021.
PRAISE
“This work is a dare. We are lucky to be blessed with this witness.”
— Saida Agostini, author of STUNT
“In mouth, jo reyes-boitel speaks of deadly fear, the complexity of figs, the constant moon, and survival of the queer body — triumphant and illuminating, juxtaposing domestic abuse with distorted beauty, mysticism, and owning your self. jo reyes-boitel disrupts fairy tale dreams, telling it like it is to obtain personal freedom.”
— Sarah Rafael García, author of SanTana’s Fairy Tales & founder of LibroMobile
“mouth invites us to experience the words that unravel the terrors of intimate partner violence, the subversion of BDSM, and the fierceness of femme-centered femininity. With luscious language and striking imagery, jo reyes-boitel compels us to occupy those interstitial spaces that define queer Latinx intimacies of survival, persistence, and elation.”
—Lilia Raquel Rosas, Executive Director of Red Salmon Arts
“With pain, power and triumph, jo reyes-boitel’s poems are a meditation, navigating the human geography of longing, loving and surviving, and resisting the seduction of self-destruction to achieve self-redemption. These are strong words and vivid lines that cling to the soul’s memory.”
—Charles Rice-González, author of Chulito
A 5”x5” chapbook from the 2021 Neon Hemlock Poetry Series edited by Saida Agostini. 62 pages. Published May 2021. Cover illustration by Katherine Toukhy.
PRAISE
“Abdulhadi’s collection is lush and fragrant, like biting into something overwhelmingly ripe. Their language is crisp and precise, full of luminously surprising images.”
—Hester J. Rook, co-editor of Twisted Moon
“who is owed springtime offers us readers an assortment of poems with dynamic visuality and an emotional range that is simultaneously wide and deep. There is love in their poems, and war, hiding and showing yourself; land and life and the most sacred of profane blessings.”
—Bogi Takács, Hugo & Lambda award-winning author, critic and editor
“Rasha Abdulhadi fearlessly plumbs the contours of multigenerational trauma, joy and pleasure, and comes back singing with the lessons of a hard won journey: I learned what the light of giving too much reveals.”
—Saida Agostini, author of STUNT
“It’s not your place to pick your own locks, Abdulhadi warns. But, truly, I would urge you to pry open this book any way you can: with hands, tools, teeth. Inside, you will find familial trauma; plucked, deseeded, and ripe for all seasons.”
—Lannie Stabile, author of Good Morning to Everyone Except Men Who Name Their Dogs Zeus
“The eloquent, potent verse of Rasha Abdulhadi’s who is owed springtime invites deep reflection on the rhythms and cycles of life. This collection explores the sincerity and complexity of passions mistimed and out-of-season: a disquiet amidst joy that intensifies our understanding of our humanity.”
—Layla Azmi Goushey