SWWIM sustains and celebrates women poets by connecting creatives across generations and by curating a living archive of contemporary poetry, while solidifying Miami as a nexus for the literary arts.

Anger Is a Girl by Audrey Lee

 

Angry girl        yellow jacket hive girl             jackrabbit, oh? Why are you angry now, well

            while I fume and burn like this forsaken solar eclipse, like pennies rattling in a tin cola 

can, alone      

            The halo around the moon is only what I show          how about the dissent of this year

            I hate when I want to love, again   hate like a man does    like a dog with its tail 

between its legs can    angry girl         a man hates because I am not him, I      am not the same      

            tidal wave hurricane in August girl                 cornea of the sun girl                   do I have his

permission to burn? Dare I show it                   man might get mad again, dog might cower, again 

            Dare I fight, again, with all the worth of a copper coin         useless and voiceless, I’m 

told this      So I march angry         sleep angry      write angry      eat my vegetables with a foul 

taste in my mouth of            earth, humanity, pesticide       bet on a wounded dog and love what I hate

            angry girl         steaming in this cicada-laden summer  runaway girl    is this normal?             

            To hate as much as a mother can                     guarding her daughter, girl                     to stew 

in this aggravated anger                     to purge every part of me that is okay with this              my 

rage is not a problem to be fixed        a manic generosity to what I hate       (bitchy girl) (what’s 

wrong with that girl?) says a man who hates me as much as I do     this feeling is mutual   much 

like how a fungus feeds off a tree            parasitic as mosquitoes, as rag-worn, moth-bitten        this 

dog howls like I used to          before I became nothing but a water-worn rapid             sharp toothed 

river fish girl     maybe it won’t always be like this      for now, I take my name like I do my 

whiskey             hot, burning    poison in the gut girl               girl                   girl                   girl      

 

 

 

Audrey Lee is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and attends Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She is the winner of the 2016 DeSales University Poetry Contest and her writing has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and Columbia College of Chicago. She has attended the University of Virginia Young Writers Workshop, Ithaca College Writers Institute, and University of Iowa Young Writers Studio. Her work has been featured in or is forthcoming from The Sierra Nevada Review, Rookie Magazine, DIALOGIST, The Indiana Review, and Teen Vogue. Audrey has interned at Apiary Magazine and you can find at audreymorganlee.weebly.com.

 

 

Down And Out by E. Kristin Anderson

Vacationing with the Dead by Suzanne Edison