From the Arm of Orion
From the Arm of Orion
by Annaka Saari & heidi andrea restrepo rhodes
We blur in the spin. Body as vessel. Space —
to run, for blooming. Vase. Artifact the child touches
when museum security turns a head. Genderless.
Every-gendered. Blend of organic batter: flesh, rock.
Jockey. Horse. House where the musical instruments
are kept. Body as nectar, as leaves to be pulled back.
Hiding place. Planet. Atmosphere that swirls around it.
Bridge of touch. Transfer. Xylem and phloem
of galaxy’s trunk. Bleed of ink from desk to page.
Concoction. Skin-Earth knot. Amalgamate.
Slurry of somata. Genesis. Pleasure fluorescing
like fish. Flash. Swell. Seen and unseen twists.
electric mutualism. mycelial storm. eco-somatic
unfurling. a succulent propagation of more. I want
a world where even the etiolated belong. involutionary
and early revolt. holobionts in bed and ether protesting
the splitting of the wishbone. Sometimes
invasion is the quietest thing, but the wind wraps
her thighs around me, my cheek an infinite surface
inviting tenderness. Limitless our becoming,
even in the overcrowded alleys wanting sun.
even in our millionth trying, we’ve only just begun.
2024 PATCHWORK Poetry Fellow
Annaka Saari is a writer from Michigan. She earned her MFA from Boston University, where she now works as the administrator for the Creative Writing Program. She also serves as managing editor for Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices and a poetry reader for The Los Angeles Review. The recipient of a Florence Engel Randall Graduate Fiction Prize and a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship, her work has been named a finalist for the Prufer Poetry Prize, longlisted for the DISQUIET Literary Prize, and appeared in or is forthcoming in The Southern Review, Cleveland Review of Books, Pleiades, Image, The Maine Review, and other publications. Her website is annakasaari.com.
2024 PATCHWORK Poetry Fellow
heidi andrea restrepo rhodes (they/them) is a queer, disabled, brown/Colombian, writer, artist, scholar, educator, and cultural worker. Their first full-length poetry collection, The Inheritance of Haunting (University of Notre Dame Press, 2019) won the 2018 Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize and their chapbook, Ephemeral (Ecotheo Collective, 2024) was the 2022 winner of the Lorca Latinx Poetry Prize. They are a 2023 recipient of the Creative Capital Award, a VONA Alum, and have received poetry fellowships from Zoeglossia, CantoMundo, Radar, and Yale’s Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration. Their poetry and creative non-fiction have been published in American Poetry Review, The Normal School, Poetry, and Waxwing, among other places. Their art and photography have been shown in a number of community art shows including at the National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco and the BGSQD in New York City. They currently live in California. IG: @vessels.we.are.
2024 PATCHWORK Film Fellow
Charlotte Glynn strives to make fearlessly honest, intimate, character driven films. She makes documentary and fiction films that have screened all over the world. Her first feature documentary, RACHEL IS, had its broadcast premiere on PBS America reFramed and has screened internationally including at the True/False Film Festival. Her most recent film, a short narrative THE IMMACULATE RECEPTION premiered at Sundance Film Festival and was a Vimeo Staff Pick, won the Hammer to Nail Short Film Contest, and the Special Jury Award at the New Orleans Film Festival among others. Charlotte was named one of the “25 New Faces in Independent Film” by Filmmaker Magazine and has been awarded residencies at Yaddo and the Berlin Talent Campus as well as two NYFA fellowship most recently for screenwriting. She received her MFA from Columbia University and is currently in post production on her first narrative feature THE GYMNAST which has participated in Sundance’s Catalyst Program, IFP week’s Project Forum, U.S & French Connection, and the Los Cabos International Film Festival works in progress market.