The Farm Without Name

Last night I went to my friend Maw Shein Win's chapbook party for her new collection of poems -- her work is edgy, funny, and quite bittersweet. Here's a sample:

(drawing by Mark Dutcher)

the farm without name (originally published in Watchword)

the home of claude cahun and suzanne malherbe

she longs for her stepsister's hips
she counts the crumbs in her lover's house
she clutches at feathers with no regrets
she remains several women
she is a masked gymnast
she wipes off the sweat while no one looks
she blinks at the penis on the curb
she is the heart of a woodpecker
she is the farm without name

she longs for her stepsister's hips with half-closed eye and shuttered lens

he picks the syllables up off the floor
he is a braided girl
he has never heard of the isle of jersey
he is a constructor and explorer of objects
he lives alone on the eighth floor
he is afraid to leave
he has green eyes like fresh weeds
he is squandered and condemned
he is a farm without name

he picks the syllables up off the floor and tosses them into the air again

it slides to the ground
it fills empty jars
it rests in the shade
it grasps at linen bolts
it is paris in the winter
it is constant as a cat
it is the mania of the exception
it is the public gaze
it is a farm without name

it slides to the ground with its palms face up
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More info on Maw:
Maw Shein Win lives in Berkeley, California. Her work has been published in journals including Instant City, Watchword, Hyphen, and the LA Weekly. She is a co-founder and editor of Comet, a literary, arts and culture magazine based in the Bay Area. Maw was recently awarded a Summer 2006 residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts.

Maw can be contacted at: cometmagazine@yahoo.com