“I call myself QUEER because I’ve learned to eroticize my own and everyone else’s confusions.” — NAYLAND BLAKE, Artist
Thrilled to edit this, the second instalment of knife | fork | book’s Not Your Best Series, affectionately titled, “The Queer Ass Fuck Issue.”
Why Not Your Best? Writing is not a contest. This series was created to counter rampant silly notions of “best/awards/winning,” to simply recognize/acknowledge the work itself.
What do I mean by queer?
In my book, Poetry is Queer (Palimpsest Press, 2021) queer is defined as: a person who self-proclaims the authority of their own body in defiance of church and state.
Radical.
Resilient. Tenacious. Creative. Out there. Joyous. Playful. Catty. Fun. Non-conforming. Fleshy. SparklePony. Baton-twirling. Activist. Sick to death of rainbows. Pride. Butch. Kween. Friend of Dorothy. Pro-sexual. Unrankled. Big fan of pretty. Plays well in the dark. Reads. Can bend when willing. Loves Mom. Cher. Pink. Warriors. Dancers. Anything flamboyant. Flies in the face of. Any combination of the above or make it up.
The call: “As editor, I’m a visceral poet and reader, make it memorable. Surprise and delight. Give me something that sticks, causes me to stop, read aloud, want to share, return to, that I won’t forget. Good poetry does just that.”
There’s no mistaking QUEER. And when a queer’s creative fountain is on full, MARVEL.
17 Artists deliver the goods. Pick it up here.
KIRBY 