I did not come into this world quietly. My birth was not out of fairy tales but horror stories of blood and weakening hearts, mothers who felt torn apart by my cries. The shrieking of a baby who would not be silenced. Even in slumber, I begged for someone to love me. It was about love, about need. I always needed. It was something that seemed like greed to those who did not understand, but if I could vocalize those cries, I could tell them I was not born to be quiet. I simply had needs I could not put to words. Needs for love and attention. And now, as an adult, I still cry out, begging, at times, for love and attention.
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.
Spiders wait in corners of intricate webs — their trappings lovely by design. Once, I thought, “What a fool to be stuck,” but now, older (and none the wiser, by any means), I see their elaborations and think myself a fly.
Scratch the line that burns me like the arsonist who tried to silence my voice with smoke. I swallowed the smolder, but the syllables turned to ash against my broken teeth. The world pleaded for silence, but I raised my voice. The world asked for quiet, and in exchange, I gave it my voice sharpened to a blade. Don’t ask for cotton when all you gave me were scars. Beware the silence you begged for – it’s simply the calm before the storm.
In March of 2009, the poet Rachel McKibbens introduced the poetry community to the concept of the “ghost line”. McKibbens defines the ghost line as “an inspiring line or image that becomes the unseen first line of a poem”.
The poet Ollie Schminkey provided their readers with a poetry prompt on April 9, 2025.
The prompt is as follows:
Use a line of a lyric from a song you have been listening to as a ghost line.
i:softening
Before they exhume our bodies from this cold hard earth, I will make a subtle plea, begging you to quiet that nest you have woven in your skull. (Silence the birds or hornets or whomever comes to roost in the twigs and branches there.)
Before they dig our bodies from this cemetery ground, I will make a hushed demand. Relax your body beside me. Your skeleton is crafted of exquisite granite, but I remember when it was bone. Soften, my love, and be still.
Photos via Cottonbro Studio
ii: out-of-focus romance
This twig and branch nest sculpture is home to a part of me I have never named. Creatures who blur the edges of memory when a lover is involved. (It’s not that I don’t remember – it just becomes out-of-focus like a dream.)
This is what happens when you have been raised on tawdry romances and inescapable dreams.
Photos via Yaroslav Shuraev, Daria Liudnaya, & Natalia Naitkevich.
iii:love extinguished
These wraiths might not catch breath as they dance along cobblestone, but, so long as I am here with you, my love, none of the rest matters.
I have diaries scrawled with messages of love, dedicated to the creatures who have blurred the edges of my memories.
Yet I watch the apparitions and know the truth. I have you, and you have me. (We are here among tombstones, and love like ours cannot be extinguished.)
Photo via Skylar Kang Photo via Tanmay Ghosh Photo via Yi Ren
Isabelle Palerma 