#kai coggin

[firstfullmoon]

Kai Coggin, from “Bluebirds Renting the Squash Studio”

[text ID: Spring / is a time for watching everything / open up again, / the buds, the flowers – my eyes, heart.]

[fluttering-slips]

Filling Spice Jars as Your Wife It seems like all my poems after this will be different, they will hold a different weight like how the weight of my heart has shifted into indistinguishable float, into lifting cloud, into weightless flight tonight as the rain gently falls on the summer-heated tin roof, the din of casual raindrops and warm low lights glowing and wind blowing through the house, we have all our doors and windows open.

We have all our doors and windows open and I am pouring spices into glass jars, coriander cinnamon cumin ground sage and it’s hard to describe this moment in the confines of a page, tiny hills of vibrant color and intoxicating fragrance and you hear the cadence of my heart from the kitchen where you build the perfect fitting slip-in shelves for our spices over the stove, match the colors, match my colors to yours, I have all my doors and windows open to you.

I have all my doors and windows open to you and you have come all the way inside, sat down at the table of my deepest desires and lit a fire to warm us both, the wind blowing through the house, the rain gently giving way to turmeric sunrise and you, darling,

you are my wife.

You are my wife and it’s like I have been waiting my whole life to say those words, and I feel held in a way I have never felt before, to look down at my fingers dusted with ginger and thyme and see the gold of my wedding band glint and shine in the warm low light glow, I am yours and you are mine, promised on Zoom in our garden of giant zinnia and hummingbird vines, sung out in the morning song of bluebirds, this union that ripples love out to the world and infinities back into us again love— in the fine powder of these spices, ground up essence of oregano and basil, I see our love in every atom suddenly and every cell in me finally exhales, and perhaps that is the wind.

Perhaps that is the wind blowing through the house, this release of eternal searching and finding you there, calling me your forever, naming me your always, to have and to hold, till death do we part and start all over again looking only for each other’s hearts, taking my life in your hands eternal, marrying me to the heavens, latching me to the star-trail of your white dress, in this orbital dance, this lift and spin, this knowing from within that all my poems after this will be different

because you are my wife. KAI COGGIN

[typewriter-worries]

Filling Spice Jars as Your Wife, Kai Coggin

[ Text ID: I see our love in every atom suddenly / and every cell in me finally exhales, ]

[havingapoemwithyou]

filling spice jars as your wife by Kai Coggin

[ciarareads]

lines from my favourite poems, part 2 (of many)

high windows (philip larkin) // in her abscence i created her image (mahmoud darwish) // if i were another (mahmoud darwish) // aphasia (chris abani) // the new religion (chris abani) // eden (ina rousseau) // interent support group (chelsea b. desautels) // death wish (josh alex baker) // filling spice jars as your wife (kai coggin) // tanaga: for phillippine-american lovers (sofia m. starnes)

[all images have alt text]

here's part I

[ciaraloves]

one of my fave queer poems is "filling spice jars as your wife" by kai coggin

it is one of the softest, homeliest poems i've ever read

[eunoiareview]

Self-Portrait As Greenhouse (approaching my 43rd birthday)

There were never really walls in the first place, just antique windowpanes cobbled together in the shape of a house, leaning against a bigger house, but it could hold the few hours of south-facing light well enough, it was warm enough until it wasn’t. Plastic sheeting, thick and double-lined hung for added insulation made the string of Christmas lights inside glow golden in a frosted…

[summerpoets]

— filling spice jars as your wife by kai coggin

[songofwizardry]

from Filling Spice Jars as Your Wife, by Kai Coggin

“We have all our doors and windows open and I am pouring spices into glass jars, coriander cinnamon cumin ground sage and it’s hard to describe this moment in the confines of a page, tiny hills of vibrant color and intoxicating fragrance and you hear the cadence of my heart from the kitchen.”

[soracities]

would you be willing to share books or poems with your favorite or even pretty writing / prose? thank you 😊

oh Absolutely

books!

A Moth to a Flame, Stig Dagerman

For Two Thousand Years, Mihail Sebastian

The Bloody Chamber, Angela Carter

Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado

The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros

The Waves, Virginia Woolf

Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

The Sea, John Banville

The Tenderness of Wolves, Stef Penney

Possession, A.S. Byatt

The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa

The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

The Book of Delights, Ross Gay

Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys

i am lewy, Eoghan Ó Tuairisc

A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki

Seiobo There Below, Laszlo Krasznahorkai

The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

The Carpenters Pencil, Manuel Rivas

Books Burn Badly, Manuel Rivas (full disclosure: the language in this book is HARD)

How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone,  Saša Stanišić

From A to X: A Story in Letters, John Berger

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

Still Life with Oysters and Lemon, Mark Doty

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

Paris, When It's Naked, Etel Adnan

A Ghost in the Throat, Doireann Ní Ghríofa

Four Bare Legs in a Bed: Stories, Helen Simpson

South of the Border, West of the Sun, Haruki Murakami

A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind

The Things We Don't Do, Andrés Neuman

We Love Glenda So Much and Other Tales, Julio Cortázar

Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke

All We Saw, Anne Michaels (poetry)

Collected Poems of Vasko Popa, Vasko Popa (poetry)

Barefoot Souls, Maram al-Masri (poetry)

Without an Alphabet, Without a Face, Saadi Youssef (poetry)

poems!

"In Spite of Everything, the Stars" by Edward Hirsch

"I Can Tell You a Story" by Chuck Carlise

"The Roses of Saadi" by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

"The Stare" by Sujata Bhatt

"Stolen Moments" by Kim Addonizio

"Moonlight Sonata" by Yannis Ritsos

"No Title Required" by Wislawa Szymborska

"I Sleep A Lot" by Czeslaw Milosz

"Prayer for the Mutilated World" by sam sax

"Try to Praise the Mutilated World" by Adam Zagajewski

"I Cannot be Known" by Paul Eluard

"The Cinnamon Peeler" by Michael Ondaatje

"Filling Spice Jars as Your Wife" by Kai Coggin

"Persimmons" by Li-Young Lee

"This Room and Everything in It" by Li-Young Lee

"When We With Sappho" by Kenneth Rexroth

"On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous" by Ocean Vuong

"Not Even This" by Ocean Vuong

"Elegy of Fortinbras" by Zbigniew Herbert

"Wedding Poem" by Ross Gay

"Transformations of the Lover" by Adonis

"Cloves" by Saadi Youssef

"Punishment" by Seamus Heaney

"I've Dreamed of You So Much" by Robert Desnos

"Bleecker Street, Summer" by Derek Walcott

"Cave Dwellers" by A. Poulain Jr.

"De Humani Corporis Fabrica" by John Burnside

"The Great Fires" by Jack Gilbert

"The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart" by Jack Gilbert

[fandoms-writings]

📣 Hey! Hey! Here we go!

Is there a fic you posted that you wish had gotten a bit more attention? Share the fic, please. ❤️

oooo what a question!

i would say either Spice Jars which i wrote for a writing challenge based off of a lovely poem called "filling spice jars as your wife" by kai coggin 🫶🏼

OR

Treasure to Share which is an artist!steve rogers x mermaid!reader that i really want to get back to one day and write them a part 2 🥺

[deankarolina]

4, 9, 12, 33 and 35 for the sapphic asks if you want to!!!!

soph! thank you

4:who is/was your most intense sapphic crush? Hope this isn't asking like actual people because I will not be answering that unless you just wanna see the words [REDACTED], [REDACTED] but have intense celeb ones Chappell Roan, Courtney Eaton, Jenna Ortega

9:do you have a "type"? if so, what is it? answered here but as a bonus have this message from one of my friends who said this after I talked gayly about a woman in a movie

12:good sapphic books/poems/authors? Some Authors: Julia Armfield (obviously), Tove Jansson, Tillie Walden, Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Pat Parker Some Poems: "want" - Joan Larkin "Oh God" - Michelle Tea "After Language" - Chaia Heller "Filling spice jars as your wife" - Kai Coggin

33:do you get crushes/fall in love easily? Oh yeah, very much so. sorry I've got a soft heart or whatever

35:if you could tell your younger sapphic self anything, what would it be?

uhh oh god what would I. don’t be such a coward, do more, be kinder to yourself? I dunno hard one

[summers-pratt]

Is there any poetry that you associate with buffy/spuffy (or what type do you think she would like)?

spuffy and poetry make brain go brrrr I read this and my brain just shorted out ok so we all know Buffy likes poetry (hello scene of Buffy telling her poetry professor she has to drop it) and I think she'd be into the romantic poets, with their flowery language and depth of feeling and metaphors and I think she would read over it a lot to fully get them but the feeling they evoke is what really pulls her to them, and it's the idea of something beautiful and emotional for beauty and emotions sake that makes it such a big deal for her bc as the slayer she can't always take her time over that so doing it with poetry is a luxury and keeps her grounded

But I also think she'd like the kind of rambling free verse wonderment in everyday type style that's increasingly popular today

Basically anything that grabs her by the gut though is what I think she likes

These are just a few and a lot of them I've seen used (very well) in fics or a fellow spuffy girlie sent them to me like "!!!@&!IT'S THEM" and I was like "!!!!^$& YEAH" so here we go:

In tiefen Nachten grab ich dich, du Schatz by Rainer Maria Rilke (there's a lot of Rilke I associate with Buffy and Spuffy and that I think would resonate with her but this would be a much longer post if I went down that rabbit hole but ok one more)

Du siehst, ich will viel by Rainer Maria Rilke

Love Poem Without a Drop of Hyperbole In It by Traci Brimhall (@thoughtsofahouseplant sent me this one and the next few bc she is a Spuffy ScholarTM)

Filling Spice Jars as Your Wife by Kai Coggin

Naked by Conee Berdera

Having “Having a Coke With You” With You by Mark Leidner

Remind Me Not, Remind Me Not by Lord Byron (@captain-peroxid3 pointed this one out and was RIGHT)

Sonnet XI by Pablo Neruda

Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda

I also KNOW I've read at least two fics with Nikki Giovanni poems in them and thought they were perfect so I think she would also like her, and also Emily Dickinson, I think she would like how succinct yet full and bright her stuff is. There's so much more so I might add onto this later but to answer your question yes there is poetry I associate with buffy, pls enjoy

[finishinglinepress]

FLP CHAPBOOK OF THE DAY: Thick Black Lines by Christie Cruise

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/thick-black-lines-by-christie-cruise/

Thick Black Lines includes #poems that extend to the experiences of #Black #people, with a particular emphasis on the nuanced perspectives of Black #women. Themes of #race #relations in the pandemic years, grief and loss, and systemic oppression are interwoven throughout the verses, creating a tapestry of shared experiences. The effects of these experiences on physical, mental, and emotional well-being are entwined.

Christie A. Cruise, Ph.D., is an author, educator, and social justice advocate. In 2019 she released her first book, It Don’t Hurt Now: My Journey of Self-Love & Self-Acceptance. Her poetry, reflections, and self-portrait photography have been published in Gumbo Magazine, Remington Review, Gallery & Studio Arts Journal, Sunspot Literary Journal, Kitchen Table Quarterly, Black Minds Mag, the International Women’s Writing Guild (IWWG) anthology Heels Into the Soil: Stories & Poems Resisting the Silence, and the IWWG Network edition Our Stories, Ourselves: Narratives from Black Women in Africa and America. In addition, Dr. Cruise has contributed to blogs for the Black Mental Wellness Corporation, The Healing Collective Global, Spoken Black Girl, and Mahogany by Hallmark.

PRAISE FOR Thick Black Lines by Christie Cruise

Christie Cruise’s collection Thick Black Lines is a vibrant reclamation of voice, a taking of space with poems that sing and sting the psyche into deep compassion. “I found a sacred place within me—fat, Black, beautiful me. And, oh, the heavens I hold…” Both achingly tender and raw with rage, these poems are unflinching anthems of a Black woman, writing defiantly from the margins, with verses on grief’s stranglehold, the struggles of being human, depression, body image, loss, sexual abuse, systemic violence, societal oppression, history’s repeating cycles of Black genocide, and the overwhelming and inextinguishable magic of Blackness. “My Black is the firmament! It is the canvas from which the stars hang. It is vast and engulfing. It is nothing and everything. My Black is Black! So black it’s blue-black. I wish a MF would, Black. Black sorrow, Black tears, Black blood, Black. My Black is bold! It is unapologetic. It is fearless, it rages on. It is resilient! It never gives up. It never fails. It is love.” Thick Black Lines stands as a brave and glorious act of resistance and power. I proudly stand beside every word.

–Kai Coggin, Hot Springs Poet Laureate, author of Mining for Stardust and Incandescent

“In Thick Black Lines, poems are incantations of what can awaken and what can break – Black girls, the idea of magic, grief, depression, and how we uplift ourselves when the world says we’re “too dark to matter.” With observations on Black bodies and the cultural margins of America, Cruise also leads us to the natural world of wind, water, and the music that shapes us. These are poems of a life well-lived and leaves us looking for more, while wondering, what else does she see?”

–Cynthia Manick, author of No Sweet Without Brine

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #chapbook #read #poems #blackpoet #POC #racerelations

[suprwy]

"We have all our doors and windows open and I am pouring spices into glass jars, coriander cinnamon cumin ground sage and it’s hard to describe this moment in the confines of a page, tiny hills of vibrant color and intoxicating fragrance and you hear the cadence of my heart from the kitchen where you build the perfect fitting slip-in shelves for our spices over the stove, match the colors, match my colors to yours, I have all my doors and windows open to you."

From "Filling Spice Jars as Your Wife, Kai Coggin