#Kim Parko

[someprettyboat]

[the-end-of-art]

Scrawled BITCH across my chest in old embers

Bitch Is a Word I Hear A Lot by Kim Parko

I hate the word, and I guess that’s why it is said? People love to hurt one another. It is what makes us human. I do love dogs. They don’t seem to be evil unless humans make them that way. Dogs can maul and they can sniff out bombs. They’ll get as close to you as they can while you’re sleeping. They’ll share heat and scent in the crook of your knees. Is there really a thing such as innocence? I have desired from birth to live. Daily, I wrestle the tight arms of guilt. At the shelter, the adoption coach told us that our new dog was highly food motivated. I have been called a bitch. Our dog trembles when he’s afraid and the only thing we can do is wait for the fear to leave. There’s no comforting him. In a dream they held me down, scrawled BITCH across my chest in old embers. They covered my head as a weapon was raised. I had a dog who once kept me from walking into the arroyo. She blocked my path and wouldn’t move. I’ll never know what, or who, she saved me from.

[yespoetry]

Kim Parko: They Wanted My

 They wanted          my

 Tap

Root

            to drought

 to dig up

from soil

            to lay atop

     the dry

layer

                   My

 hairy bulb

 thirsting

 for the sub-

terrain

 They wanted          my

 Fissures

                                                                    The tremors

 of my plates

              separating

 And I gave them     

  that

  Took the space           between        sadness

 and widened

  Gave them

gaps

between

 what made

me

  They wanted          my

 Mouth

 The deepness of it            the way it led

 to my stomach

 and

 they said

       Her throat like a snake

         Now

  they feed my children

 apples

 laced

 with cancer

They wanted         my

 Birds

  All of them

        perched

 on slim

 lines         above

 traffic

 And

          they wanted my bird’s

 egg shells

 thin

 around

 the embryo

  an insurmountable

  weakness

  from the beginning

Kim Parko is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Santa Fe, NM. Moving between poetry, fiction, installation, performance and social engagement, Kim’s work reveres permeable states of being and makes space outside of the patriarchal status/static quo. Whether textual, visual, or ethereal, her creations embrace interconnection and fluidity, intentionally blurring boundaries.

 Kim is the author of two books: a novel, The Grotesque Child (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2016) and Cure All (Caketrain Press, 2010), a work of poetic fictions. Her poetry and fiction have been published broadly, both in print and online. She holds an MFA from Bennington College and is an associate professor at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She is a mother, a wife, a maker, a hedge witch and a healer.

[vulnicura]

@sebaceous tagged me 2 do this!

5 songs you've had on repeat: dirty! by jpegmafia, death of an heir of sorrows by silver jews, blissing me (feat. serpentwithfeet) by björk, farewell by asobi seksu, & diamond day by vashti bunyan

last movie i watched: i'm gonna be honest with u i just watched suckerpunch like 20 mins ago it was bad. great soundtrack though!

currently watching: i'm almost done w the sopranos...

currently reading: cruising utopia by josé esteban muñoz & cure all by kim parko

tagging @agatke @jadedog @adz @pinkmoondoll4shihtzu @gavinstrick

[stlkn]

The day began with the usual merriment and ended with an unusual death. After the incident, we crowded helplessly around the victim. There was really no longer a body per se, only a spine with nerves extending from it like centipede legs. It crawled like a centipede too, but without its head. People called to the spine, which was vicious in the way of the mortally scarred. Its nerve-legs were inflamed, and every time the legs touched a surface, they recoiled. There was no soothing the rawness of injury, so after many hours we left the spine to writhe alone. Days later, we returned to bury the spine and were alarmed to see three girls playing with it like a doll. The girls clothed it in a fetching sundress, tied a floral headscarf around the knob of its newly formed brain.

Kim Parko, Spine

[lifeinthearctic]

“IF A RAT FAMILY IS NESTING IN YOUR HAIR, BRUSH THEIR TEETH BEFORE YOU GO TO BED.” - Kim Parko, ‘Cure All’

[restless-wreck]

favorite things that i read in 2018 (in approximate chronological order)

poetry

“why won’t you celebrate with me” Lucille Clifton (++)

“The Neighborhood Dog” Russell Edson (+++!)

“Body Snatcher” Daniel Myers (+++ (this is my fave))

Two Poems Eloisa Amezcua (+++)

“AMERICAN SONNET FOR MY PAST AND FUTURE ASSASSIN” TERRANCE HAYES (+++!!)

“SONS OF ACHILLES” Nabila Lovelace (+++!!!)

“Elegy for Mr. Spock“ W. Todd Kaneko (+++!)

“a breakdown of types and costs of American Girl Dolls” ASHLEY MIRANDA (+++!!)

“Chap” REILLY D. COX & BRENNAN EMMETT COX (+++!!! (this is incredible))

“Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah” Patricia Smith (+++)

“At My First Punk Show Ever, 1998” Hanif Abdurraqib (+++ (re-read, a fave))

Three Reilly Cox (++++!!!)

Two Poems Reilly Cox (+++!!)

fiction

“Premonitions of a Valley Girl” CAT INGRID LEECHES (++++!!)

“The Entryway” Kira Frank (+++ (tws))

“Sister Godzilla” LOUISE ERDRICH (+++!!!!!!!)

“The Fifth Story” Clarice Lispector (+++!)

“Dimension” Alice Munro (+++!!! (tws))

“Apollo” Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (+++ x100)

“All at One Point” Calvino

Five Stories Lydia Davis (+++!)

“WHY I CAN NO LONGER LOOK AT A PICNIC BLANKET WITHOUT LAUGHING”  Yukiko Motoya (+++)

“CODE OF OPERATION: SNAKE FARM” Amelia Gray (+++!)

“Man Not Superman” Jonathan Goldstein (+++ (a fave))

“A Diagram of Reproductive Anatomy” CAT INGRID LEECHES (!!!!)

“Live Mermaids” ELIZABETH THERIOT (+++ (i love it))

“Who Binds and Looses the World with Her Hands” RACHAEL K. JONES (+)

“Seasons of Glass and Iron” AMAL EL–MOHTAR (+++)

“Monster Girls Don't Cry” A. MERC RUSTAD (+++)

“Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™” Rebecca Roanhorse (+++!!)

“Regarding Your Future With The Futures Planning Consortium” Raq Winchester & Fran Wilde (++)

“The Red Thread” SOFIA SAMATAR (+++)

“TILDA SWINTON’S CHRISTMAS COUPONS” RACHEL SIEMENS (+++!)

“Ten Years a Statue” Sam Martone (+++!)

“Space” Sam Martone (+++!!)

nonfiction

“BLACK GIRLS FROM THE HOOD ARE THE REAL TRENDSETTERS” WANNA THOMPSON (+++!!!)

“Lay Off the High Ones” ISABELLE DAVIS (+++!!!)

“Sword Guys Are a Thing and I’ve Had Sex With All of Them” Hana Michels (++) 

“A Wonderfully Weird Wedding” MICHEAL FOULK (++ <3)

“Meet the Glasscos: Lesbian foster parents in the Bible Belt” KATHERINE WEBB-HEHN (this is beautiful and made me cry a lot idk)

“Wherever West Is” Jeanna Kadlec (+++! (love this))

“Caramel” Krys Malcolm Belc (+++)

“IT’S ME, THE LIGHT-SKINNED BLACK GIRL IN YOUR SCHOOL’S DIVERSITY PAMPHLET” JENNA LYLES (DAMN THIS IS GOOD)

Small Talk Krys Malcolm Belc (+++!!!)

“Welcome to Dog World!” Blair Braverman (+++!)

excerpt from Lying Lauren Slater (+++!!)

“The Killer in the Pool” Tim Zimmermann (this is awful and really sad)

“The Octopus at the Camden Aquarium” Robin Gow (+++!!!)

“Litter” Reilly Cox (+++!!!)

“Die in Summer or Not at All: A Resurrection in Three Acts” Sarah Panlibuton Barnes (+++!!!! (this is an incredible essay! (tws sex tho)))

chapbooks

loathe/love/lathe alain ginsberg (+++!!)

our own soft katie clark (++)

flowers are for pussies (and other white lies) sung yim (+++! (tws))

the weather came & so did we zooey ghostly (+++!!)

can we talk here belladonna*132 carmen gimenez smith (+++! (fave))

fiction novel

the grotesque child kim parko (++++! (second read; i love it))

pop fiction

the 100 (+ (series))

the scorch trials (++ (series))

aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe (+)

truth-witch (+++! (slow start, but i really liked this))

crazy rich asians (+++!)

comics

runaways (2003) vaughn/alphona/newbold (++)

heavy vinyl Usdin / Vakueva (++)

Fence (+++!!! (i love this so much))

runaways (2005)  vaughn/alphona/yeung (+++)

black lightning (1977) isabella/von eeden/springer (++)

Black Lightning: Year One (+++++++, i cried a lot)

black lightning (1995) (+++! (i cried more sos))

moonstruck vol 1 (+++)

the prince and the dressmaker (+++)

nimona (+++!)

how to be a werewolf (++++ <3)

clueless benson/kuhn/keenan (+++ (a fun read))

man-eater is 1-2 (++)

runaways (2008) moore/ramos (+++)

dream daddy lee c.a./jack gross (+++!)

avengers academy is 1 gage/mckone/cox (+++)

runaways (2018) rowell/anka/wilson (+++!!! <3 <3 <3(gd i love this))

goddess mode quinn/rodriguez (+++)

poetry

simulacra airea d. matthews (+++!)

cannibal safiya sinclair (this book is really fucking incredible)

calling a wolf a wolf (++)

sons of achilles nabila lovelace (++++!)

rocket fantastic (+)

in full velvet (+++)

what runs over kayleb rae candrilli (+++!!!)

don’t call us dead (goddamn this is good)

literary journals

bwr 44.2 (++) 

[hypocrite-lecteur]

"When we were little, we died of broken bones. All of our bones shattered inside us. They came out as dust through our mouths and ears. They came out as dust between our legs. They came out as dust through our pores. What was left in our bodies was connective tissue. We were filled with connective tissue that had nothing to connect. This was the cause of our deaths. We were buried on Cloud Top Hill. The funerals were neat and small and the wakes were dry. When we died, we came up to the top of Cloud Top Hill before our funerals. We could see all the layers of the worlds superimposed on one another. We could not pick out our world among them, but we could find pieces. We eventually saw our caskets; they shimmered in and out of being. We were glad, now, that our bones had come out. We were suppler, and in death we could exist without bones. Living people called us ghosts--the way we could fit through a keyhole. We could talk to each other. We were glad we had died together. We could see other people that died. We could talk to them, but everybody liked the people they died with best. The cliques of the dead are somewhat like the cliques of the living, but are less superficial."

Kim Parko, "Cliques for the Dead"

[vulnicura]

catalogue of poetry books i have: Glacier Lily by Chungmi Kim, Madness by Sam Sax, Crosslight for Youngbird by Asiya Wadud, Factory of Tears by Valzhyna Mort, Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude by Ross Gay, Haiti Glass by Lenelle Moïse, Split by Cathy Linh Che, The Latin Deli by Judith Ortiz Cofer, Cure All by Kim Parko, Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong, Crush by Richard Siken, Something Bright, Then Holes by Maggie Nelson, Midnight Lantern by Tess Gallagher, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings by Joy Harjo, How Her Spirit Got Out by Krysten Hill, Absolute Solitude by Dulce María Loynaz, & When I Grow up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen

[stlkn]

Sir or Madam: Please accept profuse excuses. My hand and eye have been greatly fatigued of late. My hand has been moving in the slowest of motions and my eye is barely drawing breath. My hand is often mistaken for a wax novelty item. My eye is a descending garage door. My hand is heavy, cumbersome, and dangerously mace-like when swung to and fro. My eye is weighed down with loose rain and tight hail. My hand is a false structure, whittled by termites. My eye is a speckled and cracked egg leaking its yolk. My hand is flourished with stagnant castanets. My eye is garlanded with breezy cobwebs. My hand teeters on the brink of litter. My eye sits catatonic in its rocket. For the aforementioned reasons, please excuse my derelictions of duty.

Kim Parko, Notes From the Hired Helped

[mooneatinginsects-blog-blog]

"I was diagnosed with failure to thrive so my mother took me home and put me under the grow lights. I spent my younger years among the chlorophyll-skinned. When I finally grew a sprout from the top of my head, it was time for kindergarten, but I only knew how to communicate through photosynthesis and was mocked or ignored by the other children. Daily I waited to get home and sit under my lamp and idly grow toward the false sun with my seedlings."- Cure All by Kim Parko

[bloodmilk]

from kim parko's book 'cure all'

[bloodmilk]

kim parko- from 'cure all'