SKYLIT: Dena Igusti, ”CUT WOMAN” w/ Ray Jordan Achan

Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies. Middle Eastern Studies. LGBTQIA Studies. Women Studies. "One of the things I love most is when a poetry book forces me to slow down, to linger in every pause between breaths and reckon with the awareness that Reading is, itself, an act of consumption. CUT WOMAN does just this. From 'night // fall' to 'day // break, ' Dena Igusti's speaker forces readers to linger in the spaces both within and between words, bodies, and countries, even when those spaces do not yet exist: 'altar of my body did i give you // a forever // i could not promise? // ... // an altered kind of grief?' These poems slice, piece, project only to gut open. These poems remember despite Memory: 'i purposely forget // the prayer for when someone dies // inna-illahi-something // i always remember how to start // grieving // but // never when or how to let it out of my mouth.'

Igusti is in conversation with actor, director, writer, producer, and executive director of the Exiled Tongues Theater Company Ray Jordan Achan.

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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski

Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.

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