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Martha
Leslie Allison
Molly Schaeffer, Illustrator
April 2015
today Martha Stewart is on tv dressed as a witch
swirling
batter, she waves
I imagine the smell of her house
it smells like a teenage girl
sitting across the train bubbling in Spanish,
kissing her butch friend on the cheek
to say goodbye, she laughs
her skin glowing golden certainty
the smell of fake fruit becoming real
dried flowers becoming moist
I should be ashamed of myself
the thoughts I think
I put them in the freezer
drizzling back to my room I see a message blinking
is it a demon possessing the internet or do I have a date?
Opening our sullen heart-minds into the pure pleasures of an altered universe
Ann Lauterbach
Martha is a lesbian fantasia that follows an unnamed narrator as she becomes enmeshed in life at Martha Stewart’s manse. She (un)wittingly becomes a key component of a volatile sexual quadrangle, the other points of which are held by Martha; Madeleine Schubert, Martha’s online pimp; and Kate, an angry ghost. In this louche paradise pleasure = power = drugs = housewares. Just make sure not to displease Mama, or she’ll set the interns after you.
Martha knows that to get to pleasure, a girl has to go through a ton of shit.
About the Author
Leslie Allison is a writer and performer. She composes choral music for performance collaborations with Francis Weiss Rabkin. Her dance and poetry criticism can be found in HTML Giant and The Brooklyn Rail, and her band Cross released its debut album, It’s Curtains, earlier this year. Martha (Spring 2015, Ugly Duckling Press) is her first chapbook.
Praise
If you hear yourself morosely whispering I’d really hoped there’d be more stoner girls slaying the ghosts of the patriarchy here just as you are stepping out of the shower on a dark wintry morning, cheer up, help is at hand! Here, in this little book, Martha Stewart has joined up with a wave or weave of beautiful peonies opening our decorous and sullen heart-minds into the pure pleasures of an altered universe: plural, funny, sexy, bright and animate. Leslie Allison has made a new room for poetry, a hologram of a corner shimmering where no corner exists. Enter, bring a towel, or not!
Ann Lauterbach
About the Contributor
Molly Schaeffer is a writer and illustrator living in Portland, OR, where she is a co-editor of the journal Big Big Wednesday.
In the News
Publication Details
Chapbook
Hand-bound. 32 pp, 5.5 x 8 in
Publication Date: April 01 2015
Distribution: Direct Only