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Poem: Cheerleader

Look - His body is glorious
when it moves across the floor
when it bends and lifts an orange sphere
at the right trajectory, an arc to in in in

you are in no position to say No
when coaches tell you to applaud
you were never in position to say No
to His muscles & bones
      the charge of rape was dropped

you can never say No
when you're told to call His name
you can never say No
to turning your lungs & breath & c(h)ords
over to the student body

                                         to lead them in desire
                   for His body
to move across the floor
& lift the orange sphere
into the right, desired arc

                                            your body
                                              belongs
                                     to these other bodies

as you long as you hold the pompoms
and want to stand in front

                                    and you sh-d never have to hide

a response

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Fiction: A Bad Haircut

My work of flash fiction, A Bad Haircut, is now online in the Spring 2011 edition of blip. The piece is a bit outside my usual style (though not entirely a departure from my usual subjects).

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Poem: On Not Writing about the De Anza Rape Verdict

I'm not going to write about it
because nothing changed today

another woman sent home with nothing
more valuable than limp, wrinkled tissue

and I'm not going to write about it
don't ask me to ask

what it means that the women who saved her,
the heroes, could only take her 

to the hospital where World Famous Doctor
would see her just enough to testify

                                               She wasn't
                                               too drunk.

don't ask me to ask if the jury believed
him over the women who saw what happened

or if they just believed Facebook photographs
and a slut can't be raped

I've never held a shot in my cleavage
but I'd had a few margaritas

don't ask me to write about it
don't ask me why I asked me why smiled

outside my flat
days, weeks, months after it happened

I'm not going to write about it
I'm not going to say for the twentieth time

                                               And you wonder why
                                               I don't report it?
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Poem: Furniture Endures

tonight the old couch with new cushions
holds red feathers between its seams

seems like it could fly
or stretch talons into black stilettos
of matching leather
                         thrown out of the bedroom

the boa was discarded before the chain
on the front door was secured

the couch has seen somebody murdered
its arms have held someone who survived

               and supported half a dozen sex lives

as it listens to its mistress gasp & cry
an unfamiliar name

                          the couch thanks god
for charity shops & curbside scavengers

the couch says

Written in response to the fifth of Big Tent Poetry’s prompts for the first week of National Poetry Month.
Big Tent Poetry

Incidentally, I never do spell “stiletto” in the dictionary-standard way on the first try.

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Magdalene & the Mermaids

Magdalene & the Mermaids

Magdalene & the Mermaids

Elizabeth Kate Switaj's First Collection of Poetry

Available From Reviewed at Sample poems at
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  • @KristenSahara
    Agreed. I try to write poems with interesting imperfections instead.
    2012/05/18 01:15
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny Then like I said you'll love Lindley Murray.
    2012/05/17 22:46
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny OK, if you want to cling to Strunk and White, that's your business.
    2012/05/17 22:18
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny That would mean striking most of the book. It's not just dated; it was wrong to begin with.
    2012/05/17 22:15
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny But surely that can be taught without the baseless prescriptivism wrapping?
    2012/05/17 22:13
  • @nomopoetry
    @dagny Formative of what exactly? Linguistic prejudices unrelated to real usage? Why not go all the way & read Lindley Murray?
    2012/05/17 22:51
  • @dagny
    @nomopoetry Argh, please, no. Strunk & White is terrible. See, for instance, and
    http://t.co/GLQYqo3N
    2012/05/17 22:10
  • "Go inside a stone / That would be my way." #poem #poetry
    http://t.co/NNbXR1N3
    2012/05/17 20:25
  • "Writing while facing a wall, incidentally, seems to me the perfect metaphor for being a writer." - Francine Prose
    http://t.co/N42f866H
    2012/05/17 19:18
  • Read an old post: Poem: A Popular Website Puts up a Poll Asking if a Journalist is Responsible for Her Rape
    http://t.co/ogNVIbGz
    2012/05/17 14:12