Poems by A.D.

Selections from BITCH/BITCH

 

 

7

 

Cutting / the rot

The sweet red / hole

 

Gelatinous / flesh

holy / of holies

 

My son / the conqueror

A hole / in the earth

 

Lion of / judah

don’t / hit me

 

Lion of / judah

I long for / the mother

 

Reaping / the dead wheat

Lacerate / the red

 

My chest / heaves death

gathering / the wheat

 

My mother / dies

Counting / the seeds

 

I wanted / so much

for her

 

Seasons / change

My mother / is dead

 

4

 

jeanne / my sister / saw

the heart / pierced / in three

 

julian / my sister / saw

the crown / the godhead / dripping

 

i saw / the swords / the heat

pearls / in / their eyes

 

i dreamt / of christ / the cross

holo / graphic / on

 

the shore / the ocean / the

blood / and water / he wept

 

for my / return / i begged

him please / let me / combine

 

let me / end / the martyr

dom / afflicted / militant

 

grief

 

we / forgive / it we

forgive / it all

 

i / forgive / it i

forgive / it all

____

 

A. D. is a Catholic poet, artist, and media critic.

Artist Statement:

Emulating the tradition of Christian mystical poetry, BITCH/BITCH is a series of 10 poems, religious revelations written from and informed by the perspective (or positionality) of a sexually androgynous Catholic woman. In this way, the series explores how systems of belief are affected by positionality, and are ultimately mediated by a larger ideological superstructure. Though interested in the overall ideological context, the principal focus of BITCH/BITCH is gendered oppression, vis a vis the stigmatization of gender non-conformity, ritualized humiliation, the sex industry, internalized misogyny, and biological control. The poetry intentionally evokes conceptual oxymorons to this end, by way of parallelism and juxtaposition: erotic language coincides with religious concepts; natural and pastoral symbols are conflated with the technological; saints parallel commodities. Traditional poetry/memoir (e.g. George Herbert, St. John of the Cross, Julian of Norwich) is used to inform more radicalized ideas (e.g. Christ as gender non-conforming, a la Norwich’s Christ as mother). Overall, it addresses religious pathology: women are more readily barred from the religious/mystical narrative, not only on the institutional level, but psychosocially, vis a vis the social experience of exploitation and oppression. The work seeks to reconcile religious poetry with this experience, and challenge the notion of who is entitled to narrate.