Episode 69: Memories in Connecticut
b'Hello Slushies, new and old. Welcome to another episode of the\\xa0Slushpile! On this week\\u2019s podcast, we will be discussing poems by\\xa0Yumi Dineen Shiroma.\\xa0\\nFirst up is a\\xa0MEGApoem\\xa0and no, we are not over-exaggerating. However, here at the Painted Bride Quarterly, we always go big or go home, so Kathleen\\xa0took two deep breaths and jumped right into reading the first poem,\\xa0\\u201cWelcome to Connecticut\\u201d.\\xa0Immediately, we were quick to realize that even though it would be a difficult one to read for a podcast, it was oh so worth it.\\xa0\\nSamantha compared this to the work of\\xa0Tommy Orange and his book, "There, There."\\xa0Marion recalled Middlemarch, and other literary works came to mind (if we can call The Omen literary?).\\nThis is a piece that took us into the mind of Yumi and its rhythm was \\u201clike a flood\\u201d. The crew felt as if the inner-dialogue brought them into a world of its own with memories so grand, we just want to stay in that moment, or literally-speaking, re-read certain lines to relive it.\\xa0\\xa0\\nThis poem brought a lot of suppressed memories for our Tim Fitts, one of which was a terrifying flashback of a woman driving with a dog on her lap, while texting. The least she could have done was pick one reckless decision at a time, or better yet, just drive?\\nAll in all, this fun and humorous piece awakened a wide range of emotions in the gang, and even had Kathleen\\u2019s thumbs up from the moment she read the title. Listen in, to find out the direction of everyone else\\u2019s\\xa0opposable\\xa0thumbs.\\xa0\\xa0\\nThe next poem titled \\u201cA Surfeit of Saturation and Light / Hungry Ghost,\\u201d smartly used nouns as verbs and vice versa. Our own music genius, Tim Fitts, also said that this poem had a perfect pitch, so who are we to argue with that!\\xa0\\nYumi\\u2019s second piece was\\xa0consensually\\xa0described as\\xa0"weird without being goofy" and "smart without being pretentious.\\u201d Now that would make a million-dollar t-shirt!\\xa0\\nIt seems both poems dived into the subconscious of the gang because Marion was reminded of the time she was possessed by demon in Singapore.\\xa0You just have to listen to get the details.\\nRandom yes, but after listening to this\\xa0podcast, do you agree with Tim Fitts that people are going to start smoking again when the zombies come? In addition, how do they pronounce \\u201cwater\\u201d where you live?\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\nYumi Dineen Shiroma is a PhD student in English at Rutgers University, where she studies the theory and history of the novel. Her poetry has previously appeared in BOMB, Hyperallergic, Peach Mag, and Nat. Brut, and her chaplet,\\xa0A Novel Depicting "The" "Asian" "American" "Experience,"was recently published by Belladonna*. You can find her on Twitter at @ydshiroma.\\n\\xa0\\n\\xa0\\nWelcome to Connecticut, Land of Death and Rebirth\\n\\xa0\\nI had run through fields in white pants bleeding\\nfrom the eye I recalled as I ran through the field\\nin my white pants bleeding from the eye and you\\nwalked beside me your briefcase your flannel your messenger bag\\n\\xa0\\nYour spontaneous face your spontaneous face your\\nspontaneous face where one won\\u2019t expect you are mine\\nin the field in the valley in the valley in the tunnel\\nspooled through your spatialized mind you are mine\\n\\xa0\\nas a tea-kettle whistles at the heat I love you\\ntryna drink my cold brew in the window as you walk\\nby and by and walk by and walk by in my cat\\u2019s eye\\nshade in your shade with the tassel in her ear I am yours\\nI run my virtual hand through her virtual hand\\n\\xa0\\n11:45 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. do yoga stare at trees, location:\\ntrees. I grew so much this year your year gray\\nhairs an evening fishing for eels in the creek\\na season overlays space the meeting of homogeneous\\nempty and messianic times where time informs our time\\nspent among any given spatial totality and you walk\\nby the window and\\n\\xa0\\n#thinking about #revenge again she shreds\\nthe straw with my teeth the buttons done up\\nto the neck like you used to do again\\nthe hand on my head the head-\\nstubble (oedipal, stacy suggests)\\n\\xa0\\nconference next slide none of the backs of the heads\\nlook like you and a season overlays time'