#lee matalone

[poetsandwriters]

The one activity I’ve found that serves as both social consolation and jolt to my stilted writing is reading Transit and Kudos, the last two books in Rachel Cusk’s Outline trilogy....Cusk’s trilogy offers a particular form of comfort, for this writer at least: No matter what happens—death, divorce, disruption—we have these words that we can wield some control over, when there is little else in this world that we can control.

Lee Matalone, in this week’s Writers Recommend; read the rest at pw.org!

[natbrut]

Issue 9 is finally here.

We are super proud of this incredible collection. A lot of work, blood, sweat, and literal tears have gone into this issue. We can't wait for you to read it. Issue 9 features art, edited by Ximena Alejandra Izquierdo Ugaz and Danielle Wright; fiction, edited by RL Goldberg; poetry, edited by Jennifer Soong; and creative nonfiction, edited by Laura Bullard.

Inside you'll also find Another Closet, a folio of work by survivors and members of the LGBTQIA+ community grappling with addiction and substance misuse, edited by Kayla AE and Laura Bullard.

[therumpus]

Some men, some women even, look at us and wonder what we grieve. Let us show you what we now grieve: our belief that our bodies were ours, our belief that we as Americans were above such enmity, that our democracy was above it, that our brothers and mothers and sisters were above it, that progress was a possibility, that we were finally, slowly, getting there, that the days of Styrofoam and plastic bags and back-alley abortions and burnt churches were in the rearview. Grief, in the best cases, brings knowledge, offers a way forward.

R.I.P. #8: Inauguration Day

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Home Making

By Lee Matalone.

[bigtickhk]

An Adulterer, a Gang Member, a Dystopian Teacher: 3 Novels of American Womanhood

Clare Beams’s “The Illness Lesson,” Lee Matalone’s “Home Making” and Melissa Anne Peterson’s “Vera Violet” all star female protagonists at odds with their social surroundings.

The Illness Lesson by Clare Beams https://amzn.to/39PUlVp

 Home Making by Lee Matalone https://amzn.to/2HxYz8j

 Vera Violet by Melissa Anne Peterson https://amzn.to/2ueF0ig

[therumpus]

Of course we smile. We smile because despite terror in our own country, it is easier to scapegoat a religion rather than sensitive ourselves to the complexities of our modern world. We smile because it is easier to deny our own inability to find comfort with fellow citizens who don’t share our button noses and golden hair. We smile, pressing our AR-15s to our prayer-riddled hearts. We smile because our memories are dreadfully, embarrassingly short. We smile because honey, why don’t you smile, you’re prettier when you smile? We smile because it is the easy thing to do, so we do.

R.I.P. #7: Naiveté by Lee Matalone.

[therumpus]

Where is the beauty and poetry in life if you’re going to treat death like something you can buy out of Costco? There’s nothing beautiful or celebratory about that. It’s just scoring the good deal, which is gross to me. But I also have to understand that not everyone is interested in the beauty and poetry of these things.

R.I.P. #6: Odd Habits.

In this issue of R.I.P., Lee Matalone interviews Ray Kim, who is a mortician and currently working on a degree in Funeral Service Education.

[therumpus]

So I did the body washing for my cousin. It’s not like you put them across the room and shoot a hose at them. It’s very intimate. You actually have to hug this person and lean them on your body and use your strength to hold them while you’re washing them. You have a dead person that’s on your chest, with their head on your shoulder—almost how you would wash them while they were still alive. When they first come out of the refrigerator, they are very, very cold and very stiff, and then almost as they’re being stretched out a little bit—it almost feels like you’re putting life back into them. It’s like doing acid with God. Like, holy fucking shit, this is the end of it all. The most amazing trust that you’ve ever experienced in your life is being given to you. You have the shell of this person, and they have no power anymore. There’s also a feeling that this is like the trash after the party. This is just the final clean-up of everything that was this life and everything this body did. You don’t feel scared of the body anymore. You have so much fear going into it, and after a little awhile, all that fear is gone. I’m feeling very euphoric. I’m feeling very inspired.

R.I.P. #5: Fantastic Casket by Lee Matalone. Art by Kara Y. Frame.