Emerging BIWOC Poet Spotlight
This monthly series features poems by women of color in the early stages of their careers. It is our intention to create more space at Perugia for the work of BIWOC, and we hope using our modest platform to celebrate this work will expand the readership of the poets we spotlight. This series aligns with Perugia’s mission to support and promote emerging women poets; all the featured poems will be from BIWOC poets with no more than one published full-length collection. We’d love to hear from readers with suggestions for poems & poets to feature.
July 2022 Poet: CLAIRE MEUSCHKE
Lessen
I learned English on top of an estimated fifty buried languages I can dig just inches down and find obsidian and shells original daily life a plum tree produced overseas thus underdeveloped plums through language I learned to disembody my own body my head hurts as if severed I learned to relate surroundings to the self my older sister my twin brother my best friend my plum tree my sister ran away his hands around her neck see this without eyes I can possess I can make a claim sister brother friend tree let’s let what surrounds surround
Source
Upend, Noemi Press, 2020
Poet Bio
Claire Meuschke is the author of Upend (Noemi Press), which was longlisted for the PEN/Voelcker Award. She received a Stegner Fellowship in Poetry from Stanford University (2019-2021) and has creative writing degrees from the University of Arizona (MFA) and Pratt Institute (BFA). She was born in San Francisco, CA and currently lives in Tucson, AZ where she works to distribute traditional, arid adapted seeds.