#Joy Priest

[notchainedtotrauma]

I do want to point out that the popular poets and popular poems here, the Mary Oliver type, are rarely from Black poets (I’m very keen on the “Black” of it all). You might see Audre Lorde in passing, maybe Lucille Clifton, but very few Black poets are widely circulated, reblogged, screenshotted on this site and  for me that’s a difficult pill to swallow. And they’re quite easy to find too, so...This has nothing to do with “representation” or “diversity” but about erasure and who seems to exist in the poetic imagination.

[lunchboxpoems]

ELEGY FOR KENTUCKY

Nowhere to drive, night upon night     that last summer, but back back to the cokey couple I was crashing with     in their 26-year habit. On the way there the same horse always dying at the curve     before I turned, like a kitschy disco ball, onto their street, name I can’t recall.     There she lay toppled like a toy figurine. Calm but huffing, a laboring machine     making steam, though the cold air belonged to June, its grief. A filly     done before becoming a mother, great belly black & wide as all surrender     & that magnificent face still against the grass waiting on the end. There she was every time     whispering something to me, a line throbbing, a visible heartbeat I watched     in the mirror for hours with my huge horse eyes. I needed to see her, to make sure     she was still there. I went the same way each evening wanting to feel something, to see     this once-immortal creature get up. Any weak thing was welcome to finish me then & when he came     into the room with bridle & bit, on his 26-year high, when he came     up on me where I was lying at that curve in my mind, arms & teeth numb,     I did not resist. Just a muted yell inside for months before it lit on me like an ancestor.     As a child, I followed my grandfather across the street behind our house        Longfield Avenue, backside of the track where the thoroughbreds for that May’s Derby     were trapped, bored of what they were bred for, all their royalty within a corral.     My hand, a child’s offering, was empty when they snorted & drew their worn noses     across my palm, yet, it was in their nature to remain friendly toward me. My home did not keep     its promise after my grandfather died. There was no protection for what I was     without him. Lone black filly. Finished before becoming. She must have tired     of standing there high-headed, waiting for me to ride her out of that war, to call out     let’s go. We are done here.

JOY PRIEST

[inhernature]

(via Joy Priest: "The Black Outside")

Dear Beloved, Come on out into the Outside: — where the nightshade trumpets cry slow sap   & celebrate. Come on Beloved. Come on out   into this milieu of militant affection. Gather in the clearing,   the shaded bush room, around this tree named Brother   where the funk is sweet, warm, damp place that gives life. Come on. Starry-eyed swamp sugar, smelling like   outside, sitting on your granny’s good couch, Lovemud.   Out into this other world, where the whole body becomes   a drum. Out here: —this ecological condition of Blackness.   Come out of that long longed for opening, lubricated   with spit. Dear Beloved, it’s a conspiracy of spirit: — it can’t be done alone. Come find me on the one & make it one more. Take your time but come on.   Out into the absurd emerald universe where their eye   can’t reach. Outside sense, where their mind can’t eat.   We are tearing the calluses of bark from our wounds. We are here in the grooves of bark, dancing up musk.   We are listening to the dehiscence   of honeysuckle seed           — : break open. When the bass crawls   up your roots and out into the night air our syncopated heartbeats boom together.   I need I neeeeeeeeeeeeed: — Listen: — You look good Beloved. Feel so good. You feel like sliding   out into dusk when it first begins.   You feel like a heat wave, shimmering   on skin. Uh. This fume of sorrowful smoke leaves me when you come closer: —                                                                       Goddamn Beloved, You’re so                                                                          soft dark night. You know                                                                          you’re out of sight: —

Copyright © 2024 by Joy Priest. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 26, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets.

[litandlifequotes]

When the bass crawls   up your roots and out into the night air  our syncopated heartbeats boom together.  

The Black Outside by Joy Priest

[dwellordream]

"Out into the absurd emerald universe where their eye   can’t reach. Outside sense, where their mind can’t eat.   We are tearing the calluses of bark from our wounds.  We are here in the grooves of bark, dancing up musk.   We are listening to the dehiscence   of honeysuckle seed             — : break open. When the bass crawls   up your roots and out into the night air  our syncopated heartbeats boom together."

Joy Priest, "The Black Outside"

[thesefevereddays]

When I See the Stars in the Night Sky

By Joy Priest

I think of Whitney Houston in her sequined glamour

She’s centerstage It’s 1988 Her head

Thrown back against a black backdrop She is the only thing

glowing So distant from us in the universe

of her voice She is already dying when

I hear her sing the first time When I slip inside

my rhinestone leotard white tights Before a mic

My vocal chords are still elastic Vibrating harpstring

Not yet sclerotic with unlovely smoke and shame

I’m drawn to Whitney like a cardinal on a branch

in winter Beauty too bright for camouflage Her story

a constellation twinned with mine. I love myself

because of her. Our sweet lip sweat sparkling in the flame

light. I went home inside myself too. The world became so small.

Secrets collapsing my life into a vacuum. To burn a little longer—

Whitney, you know no one is coming—you must save yourself.

[weewoo911]

Eddie over at Buck’s post-breakup and they end up sleeping together. Eddie feels conflicted and goes to see Tommy and they end up sleeping together here’s how buddietommy can still win-

[cavevulpis]

Evan “Buck” Buckley summarized in a Reddit post.

(He does this pre-coming out and post-coming out.)

[stagefoureddiediaz]

Ohhhh! Ohhhhh!

So you know how the well call was about Eddie - how Chim was the second character involved (as in went into the well) but the call back was about Chim.

And how the lightning strike was about Buck - how Eddie was the second character involved (as in also up the ladder) but the callback was about Eddie.

How Eddie had to lower Buck to the ground to save him and had to watch on before he could take action - how in the call back buck is the one watching on as Eddie is able to wake up the stunt man who is hanging.

How Chim found his certainty about his family growing in the callback - much like Eddie found certainty about his own family dynamic changing in the well (hello will). How Chim went home and spoke to Maddie - how they had an open and honest conversation after all the miscommunication leading up to it. How Chim and Eddie’s take aways from the well calls were basically positive ones.

How the lightning strike call back is a play on Eddie’s needing to wake himself up. In the same way Buck needed to figure out things for himself in his coma dream, Eddie needs to learn from the lightning strike parallel that he has to be the one to wake himself up.

How Buck will stand at Eddie’s side - silently mourning as he plans to leave in the same way Eddie stood at bucks bedside silently mourning as buck lay in a coma - because there aren’t the words and it’s something each of them had to do alone.

How the callback is foreshadowing Eddie waking himself up - panicking and then worrying about if his sacrifice was worth it (did they get the shot).

How after the lightning strike Buck was looking for himself and ultimately went to Eddie’s for peace - how he was able to be silent (as he slept on the couch) - but how they then had a conversation. How they actually had two conversations (kitchen and graveside) and we had miscommunications in those conversations.

How in the aftermath of the callback Eddie has been looking for himself (risky business dance) and how he ended up in the couch in silence with buck (Eddie being in the same place as buck was in s6 when he went to Eddie’s). How Eddie found a connection with someone outside of the firefam with a unique perspective on the situation (a Brad Natalia parallel was not on my bingo card but here we are) and how that has lead to Eddie’s decision and then a conversation with Buck.

[mischiefbuckley]

For this season being marketed like Eddie’s season again with Ryan doing so much press heading into the beginning of season 8… like where are all my Eddie scenes ABC??? Season 8b please deliver on more Eddie scenes and more focus on Eddie’s storyline please 🙏🏻

[birthmarkbuckley]

ok but the only way this storyline could realistically end is by eddie and chris choosing TOGETHER (and it must be together I really do think so) the joy of going back to their home in LA. and to the family that they have made for themselves there.

[jadelemonadee]

oh camp weed how i miss you 😞✊

[thegoodmorningman]

It spreads on so thick. Good Morning!!!

[sforzesco]

I adore how you manage to tickle these very intimate emotional moments from tiny detached throw-away sentences describing historical events. You're a master at filling in the deeply human blanks of history. I hope to one day be as good as you are at extrapolating emotion and nuance and momentary life from the often very broad strokes history is written with.

a couple years ago, I got ahold of M. L. Clarke's The Noblest Roman: Marcus Brutus and his Repuptation, and the way the book closes rewired something forever in my heart

it shifted my focus from being a spectacle enjoyer to wanting to sit around these figures like machiavelli writes about doing and ask them questions and see what reply is given, which also made the political spectacle more interesting

and a huge part of it is that one of my favorite genres is romance, and erotica is fun too. its a genre that is character heavy and reliant on intimacy and I LOVE character driven narratives. my favorite kind of stuff from my other two beloved genres, horror and mystery, tend to be focused on character moments, driven by internal and external arcs (OCN's the Guest, you'll always be number one in my heart forever and ever).

even though I'm doing circus stuff with historical figures, the fiction aspect of it is HEAVILY influenced by those genres because that's a lot of what I read and also enjoy writing. I'll never be good at writing dense political fiction spanning across a huge world (the thought of attempting anything on the world building scale of ASoIaF makes my brain hurt, and Im also not interested in doing that), but my god will I pick a guy and spend months in his ribcage imagining situations and wondering what he liked to eat for breakfast.

this was!!! really nice to read!!!!! thank you so so much, anon

[oldmen-enjoyer]

I know it's not as bad as that time where the wiki team immediately labelled him as "romantically interested in Amy" just cause he's old and a man ( he's just being manipulative to the core)

But holy shit just call him demon or like, "high ranking demon" WHY YOU DIAGNOSED HIM WITH ALPHA

[flustered-art]

Shout out to the people who ordered my silly conclave stickers (I love you mwah) enjoy the random doodles I’ve been putting on the thank you notes.

You too can own tedesco vaping or perhaps something even sillier if you get some conclave stickers. Who knows.. maybe if you put a little doodle request in the order notes I’ll draw it on a separate sheet 🤭