my lost womb still sings to me
by Jane Ayres
Ayres’ micro chapbook of poems, written after total hysterectomy, touching on aging, identity, relationships, and body image through the lens of a neurodivergent, post-menopausal woman. Dedicated to all hollowed-out spider spaces in a constellation of distilled moments, “angular bone nudging thin flesh,” burrowing deep into the body. (Porkbelly Press 2023)
Additional Info
EXCERPT
care taker / private property
light agitates the darkness
digesting fur-mentation
moments inedible
indelible / maceration
making word bundles
from the white of old teeth
i am emptying
mothersmother
traumastorm
hollowing the vessel
see
want
take
flesh
bone
breath there’s blood in the water
lacerations / the memory of a thing
more real than the thing itself
sniffing at the way the light still
shines / stringing the lines
watching your cadence
drawing a veil
i am empty
but my hunger
grows
ABOUT THE POET
UK based neurodivergent writer Jane Ayres re-discovered poetry studying for a part-time Creative Writing MA at the University of Kent, which she completed in 2019 at the age of 57. She is fascinated by hybrid poetry/prose experimental forms and has work in publications including Lighthouse, Viscaria, Streetcake, The North, The Poetry Village, Door is a Jar, Agapanthus, Confingo, Crow & Cross Keys, Kissing Dynamite, Ink Drinkers Poetry, ubu, (mac)ro(mic), Sledgehammer, Punk Noir Magazine, Selcouth Station, Ample Remains, and The Forge.
In 2020, she was longlisted for the Rebecca Swift Foundation Women Poets’ Prize. In 2021, her poem “Neurodivergent Cake Dream” was nominated for Best of the Net, she was shortlisted for the Aesthetica Creative Writing Award and a winner of the Laurence Sterne Prize. Her first collection edible will be published by Beir Bua Press in April 2022.
Website: janeayreswriter.wordpress.com
Twitter: @workingwords50
ABOUT THE COVER ARTIST
Nicci Mechler (she/her) splits her time between exploring, spinning tales (sometimes yarn), bookbinding, printmaking, and drawing. Her art has appeared in shows around the world and lives in numerous private & museum collections. She lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with a pack of rescue animals specializing in troublemaking and joy. Current obsessions: witchy poems, embroidery, gaming with friends, and folktales.
NOTES
Work in this chapbook first appeared in Sledgehammer, Beir Bua, Black Sunflowers anthology SMEOP, Punk Noir, Confingo, Door Is A Jar issue 17, Thanet Writers, Postscript, and Dissonance.
OTHER BOOKS
edible (Beir Bua Press, 2022)
LISTEN
Hear Jane read the first poem in this chapbook: “my lost womb still sings to me.”