As a poet and essayist, my work is rooted in the impact feminism has had on my life as a man, particularly as a survivor of childhood sexual violence. As a literary co-translator, I write about the relevance of classical Persian poetry to our contemporary lives.
Lines That Didn’t Make The Cut: Ruth’s Story
Trigger warning: These lines describe the sexual exploitation of a young woman. Ruth’s Story It wasn’t like I showed him anything he hadn’t seen before. Besides, he took the ones with clothes, the good ones, only if I did a few from the waist down. Once, we hadn’t been together for two years, because I promised my friends I’d score, […]
Repost: Review of “Nomad of Salt and Hard Water,” by Cynthia Dewi Oka
I wrote this review back in 2012, when Cynthia Dewey Oka’s Nomad of Salt and Hard Water was first published by Dinah Press (which, as far as I can tell, no longer exists). I am reposting it now for two reasons. First, since I am starting this blog from scratch, I have been going through the old posts I was able to […]
Lines That Didn’t Make The Cut: Sometimes It’s Just a Big Mess
I don’t remember where the first two lines of this came from, but somehow it ended up being a very long poem spoken mostly by a woman deciding to leave her husband. As I read it now, it’s a big mess, something in which I tried to incorporate and explore a host of ideas and […]