Raye Hendrix

Writer & editor from Birmingham, AL \ PhD candidate in English & Disability Studies at the University of Oregon \ Author of two poetry chapbooks \ neuroqueer \ she/they \ rayehendrix.com 

[rayehendrix]

This poem of mine is going around again on Twitter, so I figured I'd share it here too. Queer joy is queer survival. We will win.

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for John  Southern summer at the drive-thru, hotlong past 3 AM, glitter from some drag show queen’s plastic tits stuck to our cheekswith swe

[rayehendrix]

Sharing this poem from years ago because it's horrifically relevant. Again. I'm so tired.

AFTER ORLANDO

​The week after the shooting             every shower feels like violent baptism—symbolic rebirth             performed too literally—water too hot, skin too red. I let it blister             peel it off in layers until I can’t until my body is not a body             I recognize—becomes a diagram of the bruised blue threads             of nervous systems, bloody and exposed—and then             I ask you to hold me. We don’t know any of the dead             but when they read out the names on the evening news             we take turns weighing them on our tongues, marvel             at how something spoken can be so heavy, can choke             into throat. After that, we shower together. Say their names against             each other’s pruning skin. Say our own with the same reverence—as if             for the first time, or the last.

AFTER ORLANDO

​The week after the shooting             every shower feels like violent   baptism—symbolic rebirth             performed too literally—wate

[newjerseydevil]

my chapbook goes live today -- I'd love if you ordered a copy! It deals mostly with, you guessed it, my experiences with severe ocd.

Quarterly West - Purchase: Put Eyes on Me Not Like a Curse by Alyssandra Tobin

Quarterly West - Purchase: Put Eyes on Me Not Like a Curse by Alyssandra Tobin

[feral-ballad]

Safia Elhillo, from Girls That Never Die: Poems; “Orpheus”

[Text ID: “My body is something / I have worn / for other people.”]

[quixoticanarchy]

I promise you can use the words “disabled” or “disability” I swear to you. It’s fine. Please stop making me read things like this specimen I found in the wild today: “individuals with a self-care vulnerability”

[weltenwellen]

Natalie Díaz, from “Grief Work”, Postcolonial Love Poem

[apoemaday]

They Will Say

by Carl Sandburg

Of my city the worst that men will ever say is this: You took little children away from the sun and the dew, And the glimmers that played in the grass under the great sky, And the reckless rain; you put them between walls To work, broken and smothered, for bread and wages, To eat dust in their throats and die empty-hearted For a little handful of pay on a few Saturday nights.

[florriescreamlagoon]

A green fish rises from my mother’s water : shows me how to take apart           my bones : how to break and reposition them to make of me a boat :

          ribcage hull : femur mast : scaffolding of tibia and spine : if I leak I fill the gaps           with teeth : the fish says ifIi use my skin for sails I won’t need my mother’s body :

          yes i say but who                       will brush my hair

Raye Hendrix

[rayehendrix]

!!!!!!!

[fluttering-slips]

Home

           the elusive dark : slow curve of a mother’s spine : riverbank            solid enough to stand : home a starsilver river of arms

           my mother’s riverbend is subtle & soft : her arms wet firefly            light : home the far shore of her heart & i : the traveler boatless

                       / /

           a green fish rises from my mother’s water : shows me how to take apart            my bones : how to break & reposition them to make of me a boat :

           ribcage hull : femur mast : scaffolding of tibia & spine : if i leak i fill the gaps            with teeth : the fish says if i use my skin for sails i won’t need my mother’s body :

           yes i say but who                        will brush my hair

RAYE HENDRIX

[rayehendrix]

Discovering that people have shared my poetry on tumblr is absolutely making my day, I'm so soft, omg <3 <3 <3

[mindless23]

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

—Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis [Raye Hendrix, The Intruder]

[bottlecap-press]

From Raye Hendrix’s chapbook, Every Journal is a Plague Journal, available at https://bottlecap.press/products/every-journal-is-a-plague-journal-by-raye-hendrix

[rayehendrix]

Hey, I wrote this!!!

[rayehendrix]

My poem, "Punchline," from the Winter/Spring 2022 issue of Poet Lore.

[rayehendrix]

Poetry! Literature! Disability! Twitter???

I am here! Gonna kick this off by posting one of my favorite poems I've ever written soon, but starting small by saying: if you're from Lit Twitter, let's rekindle our friendship here? I love ya!

If you're not from Twitter but you're seeing this: hi!

I'm a writer (mostly poetry) editor (poetry & a disability literature column) & PhD candidate working on a hybrid English/Disability Studies dissertation on representations of invisible/imperceptible disabilities in contemporary US American poetry.

I'll post lots about poetry, disability, activism, & queer shit, for the most part!