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.
Uncultivable mycelium runs her strands through the loam of low-lying woodland. She sleeps most of the year. Treasure-fish. Sought by pigs. Hungry kids comb woods in early May, around Derby Day. Every old hand has a trick for finding them: go to the widest tree, the poplar or the cottonwood, and look among its south-facing knees. Go after a full moon, go after two days of rain, go when the sun returns and the moon winks. When I heard someone say, I'm just not inspired by nature, I smelled dirt. Layers of rot. Last fall's oak leaves. I want them to hunt with me, briars tugging at our ankles, spiderwebs in our hair, for a thing so precious no one can grow it on purpose. Honey, I want you to taste pure luck on a spring morning when a giant lifts her head from the earth and, like a miracle, overnight bears up sweeter than the flesh of any fish.
Eileen Rush is a queer writer, poet, and narrative designer raised in Appalachia and living in Louisville, Kentucky. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, Pleiades, and elsewhere. She's got her a garden and lives on a farm with, depending on who you ask, too many chickens.
