poetry

A Group of Poems Is Called a Whisper

/ H. E. Casson

Today I’m going to share the poems I had published while I was on pause.

The first, Salt, was published in poetically magazine‘s premiere issue, wonders of winter. It’s perhaps my most intimate poem.

My minison series, The Seven Stages Via Kübler-Ross, appeared in the third issue of The Minison Zine. A minison is a 14 letter sonnet, and is the shortest form I’ve experimented with.

Three of my poems were published in print journal The Avenue‘s sexuality and gender themed issue. They aren’t available online, but the issue can be purchased here.

If you enjoy my poetry, you can always find more of it here.

CENTRING OUR CREATIVE COMMUNITY

Author Dianna Gunn wears so many hats, I’m starting to think she’s a hydra. When she’s not prolifically penning stories, recording podcasts, or helping authors learn how to market their work, she’s busy creating virtual conferences. There’s one coming up on February 20th called Worldbuilding Deep Dive. I’m particularly jazzed for the Accessibility in Worldbuilding: Understanding How Disabled People Move Through Your World panel. All of the panels are free, though spaces are limited. Writers can sign up here.

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Awards Eligibility Time!

/ H. E. Casson / 1 Comment

Welp, for the first time ever I’m creating an awards eligibility post. Small but mighty, I’m proud of this list of what I’ve accomplished in my first year actively and consistently submitting. Thank you for giving my work a look!
—H. E. Casson

Title: Wings Pulled To Body
Genre: Poetry
Publisher: Scifaikuest, August 2020
This is a short poem about reverse metamorphosis.

Title: 12 Tanzen Lane
Genre: Fantasy/Fairy Tale
Publisher: Cast of Wonders, September 2020
Published as an audio play, 12 Tanzen Lane is a queer retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses fairy tale, set in a group home. It explores gender, trauma, mental illness, and love. It’s informed by my own time spent in the group home system growing up.

Title: Weeding the Experiential Archives
Genre: Speculative Fiction
Publisher: The Quilliad, November 2020
In this experimental short story, you are cast as the archivist, deciding which experiences will remain in your collection and which will be discarded and sold. The experiences are gleaned from the near past, present, and near future.

The Labels on Shampoo

/ H. E. Casson

My first published shape poem, The Labels on Shampoo, is in Ang(st)’s 4th issue, which can be read here. Ang(st) is a feminist zine with a focus on the body. The other works in this issue cover so many moods and styles. There’s likely something in there for every experience of hair. I’ve found some brilliant new writers to follow in this issue.

Funny side story: when I wrote this poem, I went to my local drugstore to take pictures of all the words used to sell shampoo (which, lets be honest, is just wet soap). I took so many photos, a guy at the store thought I was casing the joint. I had to explain that it was all for poetry. I’m not sure he bought it.

CENTRING OUR CREATIVE COMMUNITY

BTW, if you’re into zine culture, there’s some impressive work being done at the Wiggle Bird Mailing Club. There are a few different levels of support you can offer on their Patreon, but every level includes at least some of their bright, gloriously designed zines from trans and queer authors. If an ongoing monthly commitment isn’t feasible, you can also support them with one-off purchases at their Etsy shop.

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Naked

/ H. E. Casson 
by H. E. Casson
(CW: Gender dysphoria, anxiety)

I stumbled across a poem I wrote a full two decades before I was open about the queerness of my gender. I sometimes feel like I was leaving myself breadcrumbs so that when I finally realized how lost I was, I’d be able to find my way home. This is one of those breadcrumbs.

For folks using text readers:

The clothes, they feel wrong
But the fault’s in the wearer
In terror of being
Exactly myself
With the clothes
That I chose
From the piles on my shelf
I’m pretending I’m someone I’m not
Someone else
Someone normal
And happily lost in the crowd
When I’m lost in this shroud
In this lie
Over-false
Truer walls around feelings
That don’t match my pulse

And I’ve twisted around
From the me I should be
That even my clothes
Have rebelled against me

Saying, “There are some things
That we have to discuss.
For we’d rather you naked,
Than fake it,
With us.”

Shared on Twitter in 2020
Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Allhallowtide

/ H. E. Casson

For the second time, the wonderful Kristin Garth has included one of my poems in her journal, Pink Plastic House. It was part of her 31-day collection of Halloween-hearted poems. You can read it by clicking here and scrolling down to October 17th, the day my poem was featured.

Centring our Creative Community

It seems apt to feature Kristin Garth – a creator and editor whose work will knock your socks off! Toeing the line between innocence and disaster, her work is always moody, always impactful, always visceral. You can support her by buying her books and following her on Twitter or Instagram. Read more from Pink Plastic House here.

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How I Got Here

/ H. E. Casson 
(CW: Trauma, anxiety, neurodiversity)

Thanks to Taco Bell Quarterly for offering me my second nomination for the Best Of The Net for poetry.

For the first time, I’ve dedicated most of my efforts not just to creating, but to trying to share what I create. That part has always been the wrench for me.

About two years ago, I left my job. When I say I left my job, what I mean is that I got onto a bus, rode it to the subway station, got out and stood on the platform

and

could

not

go

inside.

My body rebelled. I full-on froze. My mouth tasted like I was chewing tinfoil. My heart was a wind-up toy from the flea market let loose under my ribs. I called HR and told them I couldn’t do it. I quit.

You don’t need to know the details of what happened at my job to spin me out. It was an echo of a recurring trauma, played out like a house of mirrors and it triggered my flight or flight. (And I’ve never had fight. Not ever.)

I left. I got a part time job to help with the bills and started sending words out.

I live in a neurodiverse bubble that makes enjoying my own accomplishments complicated — even impossible. I’m sharing my nominations because I want them to stay in my brain. I want them to imprint as deeply as the bad stuff. I want to remember how I felt when I heard. How my body reacted. What my mouth tasted like. What my heart did.

A poem I wrote about a place that gave me something when I had nothing is out in the world. Thanks for that, TBQ. Thanks for giving my story a home. Thanks for giving me a reason to pay attention to what my heart does.

New Poem in SCIFAIKUEST

/ H. E. Casson

SCIFAIKUEST is a journal of short form science fiction and fantasy poetry published by Hiraeth Books. The August 2020 issue features my poem, wings pulled to body. I’ve received my copy of this issue in the mail and its full of small bursts of creative wonder. If you like your speculative verse in bite sized form, this is for you. The issue can be purchased here.