The dirtiest words are those used to describe women and their anatomy No other words are filled with such hatred, cruelty and disgust
I’m an artist, a writer, a vegetarian, an animal rights activist, and quite a few other things as well. I love books, cats, philosophy, good conversation, Chicago and the arts. So my blog is full of bits and pieces but it’s the bits and pieces that make life interesting to me. You can read more of my writing at Rethinking Life
The party is in full force, women are lifting their skirts turning ankles, kicking legs higher, swaying men are throwing back brandy, urging on, wiping damp hands on the backs of chairs unseen. Children who are supposed to be sleeping, watch from the tops of stairs, for discarded drinks especially those too sweet and yellowed with adult oxygen. He’s outside in the garden somewhere lips too red for a man’s, the repulsion of longing like a razor cut. Emboldened by the madness, she makes promises she knows she doesn’t want to keep, even in that moment, intoxicated by the gaiety of the crowd as if their swell has taken over the sea and caused waves high enough to drown all sense. He whispers dirty words in a hot mad gush Touching her collar with sticky fingers Drawing her close like an insect bisected with pin Will resist the final push. She’s running through unseen trees Wild plumage releasing midnight feeling with sore hands for their passage longing to return to silence where the strings affixed to her shoulders are slack and she can plunge headfirst into cold ocean where the weight of water always helped her see without correction.
Photo by Fidel Fernando on Unsplash
Born in Europe, Candice Louisa Daquin is of Sephardi French/ Egyptian descent. Daquin was the Publishing Director at the U.S. Embassy (London) before becoming a Psychotherapist. Daquin is Senior Editor at Indie Blu(e) Publishing, a feminist micro-press and Editorial Partner with Raw Earth Ink. She’s also Writer-in-Residence for Borderless Journal, Editor of Poetry & Art for The Pine Cone Review and Poetry Editor for Parcham Literary Magazine. Daquin’s own poetic work takes its form from the confessional women poets of the 20th century as well as queer authors writing from the 1950’s onward. Her career(s) teaching critical thinking and practicing as a psychotherapist have heavily influenced her writing. As a queer woman of mixed ethnicity and passionate feminist beliefs concerning equality, Daquin’s poetry is her body of evidence.
In honor of its 5th anniversary, Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless are teaming up this November to sponsor a series of 30 daily creativity prompts, comprised of the titles of our 25 published books and four upcoming titles, along with a couple fun phrases to round it out. We think our book titles are pretty damn cool and we hope they spark your creativity. You are welcome to respond to as many that inspire you.
Note: Some of IB books have fabulous subtitles. Want an extra challenge? Try integrating the subtitle into your response
It is our honor and pleasure to publish your prompt responses on Indie Blu(e) Publishing and Brave & Reckless . We welcome poetry, prose, flash fiction, creative nonfiction, essays, and high-res original art inspired by the prompts.
How to Submit
The captivating poems in Dirty Words aren’t just a feminist journey through women’s issues. These essential poems represent women in the various mundane, necessary, and often unfortunate aspects of life throughout all the stages of a woman’s years, from young girl to mother. Poems about sexual violence, abortion, marriage, and motherhood are just some of the topics unearthed with passion and precision. Lilius brings together words that strike into our hearts and bodies through vivid imagination and eager images. The reader will see that feminism isn’t a dirty word after all, but rather a powerful and vital concept everyone should apply to the everyday, the universal.
“There are forgettable words, there are memorable words and then there are dirty words. By dirty, I have found Sarah Lilius knows every kind of word (and emotion) out there, and is a master articulator, capable of threading together intoxicating poetry like a string of prayer beads. There’s nothing sanitized in her intense soul, it’s unfiltered all the way. If there were a new language, I would expect Lilius to have invented it. Her uncanny wielding of the nature of existence might well be written in blood; it’s permanent, intoxicating, and shocking in its comprehension of us all. Dirty Words is as essential as eating, it doesn’t need to beg, it summons, and you devour.”
-Candice Louisa Daquin, Pinch the Lock
“In Dirty Words, Sarah Lilius explores the female body in the world as animal, as object, as performance, as victim, as shame, as mother. These powerful poems inhabit a landscape lush with sex and music and bears and blood. They give us a history of girls and women who are “tired as buttons/used over and over,” who are searching for “courage, an ashen/thing” anywhere it might hide: a forest, a circus, a hotel shower, a gravel road, a paneled basement, a kitchen with Hole blasting from the stereo, or on the edge of a cliff with Thelma and Louise. Using both narrative blocks and lyric fragments that call on both pop culture and the natural world, Lilius gives us a speaker who is a survivor, “with nothing inside or everything inside,” arriving at last at the conclusion that “I’m the editor of my own heart.” “
-Donna Vorreyer, To Everything There Is
“The aptly titled Dirty Words is akin to the risqué magazine hidden under your mattress or the diary of the coolest, most badass girl in school, who just so happened to be your mother. That is not to say that this collection centers on youth; it doesn’t. Dirty Words follows its author through a rough and tumble life in which she vehemently questions the ongoing war between men and women while timidly asking you to dance. I found myself swooning with such standout lines as “I hear La Llorona with stars scraping over my head,” and the more whimsical “His beard full of snarls and dead leaves, I wonder if birds nest there.” Equipped with the descriptive powers of Allen Ginsberg, the rawness of Charles Bukowski, and the perspective of Dorothy Parker, Sarah Lilius is sure to enrapture and delight readers.”
-Georgia Park, Softly Glowing Exit Signs
To purchase Dirty Words, click here.
Publication Date: July 26, 2021
ISBN-13: 978-1951724092
Sarah Lilius is the author of the poetry collection, Dirty Words (Indie Blu(e) Publishing 2021) and six chapbooks including GIRL (dancing girl press, 2017) and Traffic Girl (Ghost City Press, 2020). Some of her recent publications include Boulevard, the Massachusetts Review and New South. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net Prize. She lives in Virginia with her husband and two sons. Her website is sarahlilius.com.
my eyes rarely rise to meet reflection they slide away unconsciously unseen unseeing once, long gazes into mirrored glass were moments of self-indulgence self-reflection self-assurance but time, pain have taken their toll brightly lit bare-faced self-inventory has lost its charm only in steam-fogged moments do eyes boldly gaze through the looking glass seeking recognition
© 2023 Christine E. Ray – All Rights Reserved
Photo by Yana Hurska on Unsplash
I’m an artist, a writer, a vegetarian, an animal rights activist, and quite a few other things as well. I love books, cats, philosophy, good conversation, Chicago and the arts. So my blog is full of bits and pieces but it’s the bits and pieces that make life interesting to me. You can read more of my writing at Rethinking Life
the looking glass never lies we might but the mirror does not we see ourselves aging we see people fall out of sight gone forever we watch out lives play out through the looking glass see the joy and sadness the beauty and the ugliness we watch as our youth disappears the past simply erased one mirrored day at a time but none of that matters because the looking glass is more than that it’s a reminder that we’re still here that life goes on that we are actually fabulous that the future is still ahead of us those are the things we see reflected in our own mirrored eyes because no matter what the glass tells us it can’t keep a fantastic woman down
Photo: Vince Fleming, Unsplash
I’m an artist, a writer, a vegetarian, an animal rights activist, and quite a few other things as well. I love books, cats, philosophy, good conversation, Chicago and the arts. So my blog is full of bits and pieces but it’s the bits and pieces that make life interesting to me. You can read more of my writing at Rethinking Life
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