June, Gender Nonconformism, and September
Zoe J.
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This summer was creatively interesting. Usually I don't write very much outside of my school arts program, but this year has been spent building up to writing a book and every experience I have has been filtered through a poetic lens. This collection has three poems. I wrote the first, "June," about how my summer felt compared to now, when I'm back in school. The third poem, "September" describes my experience with fall and how it's connected to wildfires, or at least the fear of wildfires. September is a busy month. June is not. I wrote the first act of "September" in 2022 and didn't finish it, and this year used it as a launchpad for the second act. The years I wrote them are in the names of the acts because they reflect different aspects of September across different times, and I felt it was important to show the gap between them. The second poem, "Gender Nonconforming," is a reflection on community and language failures of my existence outside of gender. It's bookended by "June" and "September" to place it in time.
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Creativity is a necessary part of life. To create is to express, and it is many things: primarily writing, but also bookbinding, math, singing. Writing is how I make meaning out of my experiences, evoking feeling, establishing patterns. It's part of how I think. It's joy.
