"[the girls speak to each other via the common tongue]: Feather or a Rock" by Ellen Welcker

[View this email on a browser]( [Forward to a friend]( [facebook-icon]( [tumblr-icon]( [twitter-icon]( January 16, 2018 [[the girls speak to each other via the common tongue]: Feather or a Rock]( [Ellen Welcker]( which do you love more a feather or a rock to be good is to be ‘natural’ I mean to appear you are not good you are holding up though you are holding up you are getting a drink of water you are eating you are concealing your identities this is like a riotous wilderness but more like a persistent dread your ferocity, almost mycological mythological I said mycological oh god oh my god your laughter has undertones of oak and berries and martial law conceived, as it were, in a garden [Like this on Facebook]( [Share via Twitter]( Copyright © 2018 Ellen Welcker. Used with permission of the author. [Ellen Welcker reads "[the girls speak to each other via the common tongue]: Feather or a Rock." Recorded for Poem-a-Day, January 16, 2018.]( About This Poem “This poem is from a section of my manuscript in-progress, The Pink Tablet, that is concerned with the mutability of borders and boundaries real and imagined, imposed and inherent. Confronted with various modes of aggression—hunted, scapegoated, trapped and loathed—the girls lay claim with a shape-shifting ferocity, but the bodies they become are no safer vessels. The complexity this poem is exploring is the fact of being a being, how in so many small ways they (we) open to and guard against the world in all its shimmering terror and beauty. Here, they speak to each other in a private language that is half call-and-response, half finishing each other’s thoughts.” —Ellen Welcker [Ellen Welcker]( Ellen Welcker is the author of Ram Hands (Scablands Books, 2016), The Botanical Garden (Astrophil Press, 2010), and several chapbooks, including The Pink Tablet, forthcoming from Fact-Simile Books in February 2018. She lives in Spokane, Washington, where she works on literary events locally and nationally. [Ram Hands by Ellen Welcker]( Poetry by Welcker [Ram Hands]( (Scablands Books, 2016) "You Are a Dark Body" by Natalie Scenters-Zapico [read-more]( "Dear Exile," by Mai Der Vang [read-more]( "A Taste of Blue" by Cynthia Manick [read-more]( January Guest Editor: Kaveh Akbar Thanks to Kaveh Akbar, author of Calling a Wolf a Wolf (Alice James Books, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about [Akbar]( and our other [guest editors for the year.]( Help Support Poem-a-Day If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a [monthly donation]( or [one-time gift]( to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today’s poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! [Small-Blue-RGB-poets.org-Logo]( Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit [Poets.org](. You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click [here](. © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038