the basics

Poetry is like glue

I always finalize the poetry last.

Once the short stories, essays, and story-essays are sorted through, I turn to the poets. By then, I’m fairly certain of how the edition is coming together, and I have a clearer sense of exactly how to curate the poem or poems we’ll publish to make the next quarterly into one cohesive art-object (because that’s what’s going on here, in a lit mag space, right? Each selection informs the other selections. Each piece is individual, but they are part of something else, something larger.)

The poetry often fills in the gaps, acts as glue. At least for Talk Vomit, anyway.

Anyway, here’s a poem from our summer quarterly. It’s brief, and so I will be, too.

See you again very soon.

xoxo,
Monica

By Eva Woolven

i have a cervix  i live in a sugar town  my name is “baby” i sit on walls and i drink cups of coffee in dirty mugs i have a dishwasher i have salt-suds on my teeth everything in sugar town is kept clean i have a cervix i live in sugar town my name is “baby” everything in sugar town is bone-deep i have a hammer i keep on hitting myself in the knee i have a telephone the wires hurt my head i don’t know how to kiss i sit on walls i have integrity i have meaning i have car-wash i have school-run lift-off i have humour i go up the junction every day i have a cervix i live in sugar town they call me “baby” i have the ruffles i have the babies  i have the basics

Eva Woolven is a student writer from South West England. She was one of 2023’s Foyle Young Poets of the Year and has been published on the YPN website. She is currently working on a collection.