#mywriters

[maybethings]

Jsyk I have a microchap coming out in a couple of days. 🥳

[maybethings]

Hey May, what’s this?

I have work in the brand-spankin’-new RECLAIM anthology: a collection with 47 lady poets writing about their struggles, their selves, and their determination to fight for better things. My poem Prophecy of the Fragmented Woman is about the things made of girls and women (and what we might make of ourselves).

Awesome! And they’re paying you?

Yes they are! But we still need your help to make it happen.

Everyone - that’s editor Elizabeth R. Deyro, cover artist Ann Kiernan, us contributors - will be compensated based on the first 2 months of sales. So the more support we can whip up in these early stages, the better that final payment will be.

I know budgets are tight all round, but if you CAN support us, please support this work and these powerful, passionate voices. The print version is price-fixed, but you can choose to pay what you want with the digital version.

OK can! Where can I get it?

Get it in print here: https://bit.ly/2Q9sPtp Get it in digital here: https://payhip.com/b/hkzF

Thanks in advance for your support! Now go enjoy some of that fiery poetry.

[maybethings]

Guess who’s got two thumbs and a Rhysling nomination

[maybethings]

Someone asked if this was like childbirth

Fuck anything long enough and watch it grow heavy with secrets. We bear more than our share of resentments. We makan enough hati for entire families. Our tongues crave salt, acid, the first kingyellow jackfruit. Bitter we have already. This country kicks like a mousedeer, roars like a tiger, rises like the broad buffalo from the muck. We ride the ripplings of reformation, pangs that sting like tear gas. Push, even as we cry for relief, for the cracking timbre of our neglected voices, push back against the hurting. White-knuckled black-fingered we labour for a new nation against time, against borders, against spite, against deep-rooted agony. How/ why is it taking so long? Push harder. Brace yourself, breathe, remember to breathe, we squirm anxious for the crown -ing that announces the emergence of the overdue. The reborn. Can you see the head now? The first voice shatters us at the knees. Congratulations. It’s the country we made, coiled together trembling with silenced hopes. Siphon the sludge and slickness from its lungs. Wash it clean. Name it ours. Go, dream what might it be. What might it become when it grows up.

- May Chong

[maybethings]

MY LOT IS A SKY is an anthology of poetry by Asian women. Named after a poem by Forough Farrokhzad, an influential Iranian writer and filmmaker, this collection provides a space for long-underrepresented voices to express themselves.

Curated by Melissa Powers and Rena Minegishi, this book is not for those seeking work on what it specifically means to be an Asian woman today. You’ll find that the poetry within these pages is, really, about what it means to be human.

My poem ‘Lessons from Grandfather’ found a home this year. It’s about growing beyond trauma and scars inflicted by family. If you’ve got relatives who were very different people inside and outside the home, if they became more dire warning than good example, if you cannot decide on whether they are worth forgiving...this one’s for you. Hope it helps.

Also the cover is simply stunning. I mean, look at it:

[svetlanaknezevicworld]

𝓓𝓾𝓫𝓻𝓪𝓿𝓴𝓪...🖤 March 2023 #amsterdam #dubravkaugresic #mylife #myAmsterdam #mywriters #picofoftheday #athomeintheworld #dametraveler #interiors #traveldeeper #instamood #beauty #love #trending #stylediaries #fashionista #livingthedream #instafollow #passionpassport #lifeofawriter #lifeofaconsultant #makingtheimpossiblepossible #myworld🌎 (at Amsterdam, Netherlands) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp5wn3Xs2zv/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[maybethings]

Kamcia

We protected them, these unbarked /whose sweat and salt quenched /our roots.

GUESS WHO’S IN STRANGE HORIZONS

You can read Kamcia at the link above OR listen to it here (I did the reading, too)

[svetlanaknezevicworld]

"I'm not telling you to make the world better, because I don't think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I'm just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that's what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it" - Joan Didion January 2018 #london #nationalportraitgallery #inspirationalquotes #joandidion #mylife #nyLondon #mywriters #photo #photography #photographers #stylediaries #interiors #editorseye #iphonography #instagramers #instagramersgallery #myworld🌎 (at National Portrait Gallery)