With a concept from kiki_poetry, I am using a line of poetry from an Asian-American or Pacific Islander poet in honor of AAPI Heritage Month.
I do realize I’m late to the month’s theme, but I hope to make up for it in the next few days.
Today’s line comes from a poem by Sarah Gambito, “Yolanda”. As per kiki_poetry’s instructions, I will italicize the line from “Yolanda”.
I gazed upon you, and you were a divine feast, flawless in your imperfections and everything about you shrieked neediness. We were so far from what we came from – godliness and purity, and yet, nonetheless, when we made love, weeping with each other’s blood in our eyes, we stared and witnessed one another as whole and perfect.
Odessa Grimm, in their own words, is a poet who writes from the places people usually avoid – the quiet, heavy corners shaped by memory, trauma, and heartbreak.
Their work is raw and honest; sometimes, according to Odessa, it can be “uncomfortable” because they don’t believe in softening the truth to make it easier to hold.
When did you realize your writing voice had developed into your own?
It wasn’t just a single moment – more like when I noticed I stopped asking for permission to write and be myself. I realized my voice had settled in when I could read something and recognize it as something I was actually proud of.
How do you decide what goes into a poem and what to leave out?
I try to keep what carries weight and brings emotions out. If a line is only there to sound pretty, it usually goes. If it hurts a little, I leave it in.
What would your younger self think of your poems?
I think my younger self would feel seen – maybe a little exposed. Probably surprised the things they tried to hide became the very material I write about. There might be pride there but also a quiet kind of grief, realizing that the reason why I’m writing is because we lost our best friend.
What is a line from a famous poem that haunts you?
A line that stays with me is from Emily Dickinson:
“Tell the truth, but tell it slant.“
It lingers because it understands something essential about poetry that truth can be too sharp to face.
Angling it, shaping it doesn’t weaken it. It makes it survivable, and sometimes, more honest.
Do you believe poetry has the power to shape the world we live in?
I do think it can shape the world we live in but not in loud, immediate ways. It works slower than that. It changes how people see, and once perception shifts, choices follow.
A poem can name something someone didn’t have language for before, and that alone can alter how they move through life.
girls like me stop blooming when we are told your anger is unbecoming your brightness is too much your mouth is a threat so we grey quietly & rot elegantly.
“Write your own blackout poem. Maybe you’ll find something of interest in the Internet Archives.”
According to Claire McNerney, from The Writing Cooperative, “blackout poetry is a form of found poetry where the poet takes a text and removes words from it, creating a new text”.
Here’s mine:
“The Woman who Couldn’t Die”
She looked like a goddess, no doubt, in another way, she seemed very much a woman. She was primitive, casual in her childlike uncovering of her body, in the unconcern of the eyes of others when she bathed. She knew that she was beautiful; and she had knowledge of the power of beauty.
She watched a wild goose fly overhead, watched it as it disappeared from sight. “Tell me,” she said, “where did I come from?”
Needling of apprehension through my body. How much she should be told was not easy to determine. “From across the sea.” “It must have been long ago.” “Yes. It was long ago.”
“Write your own meditation on grief, with a middle section in which a question is repeated with different answers given.”
We dressed our mirrors in black, hiding our reflections from even ourselves. Our songs turn to lamentations, our eyes wet with tears.
How do you mourn your dead? You speak their name so they will not be forgotten.
How do you mourn your dead? You find their symbolic language and look for them every day.
How do you mourn your dead? You don’t mourn the loss. You celebrate the life they led. You wear colors so bright we look like confetti. You dance under a full moon to songs that feel like worship.
We visit cemeteries and talk to ghosts, whisper prayers to candles.
How do you mourn your dead? We celebrate the days we shared and forget the ugly rot of death.
Slice through the heart of me and wonder why I feel so raw. There’s bleeding somewhere, and yet I’m still searching for the cut. I’ll seek out the scars, but I didn’t know I was the one clinging to the knife.
Isabelle Palerma 