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ENDLESS SKY Runner-Up - Emily Cotman

by Matthew Magill

 
"I'm up here dreaming of the mischief we'll make"


Our runner-up piece for the second poetry competition, ENDLESS SKY, is Emily Cotman's meet me in the jet stream. We chose this piece for its uniquely playful take on themes of death and the afterlife. Cotman weaves the two together with vernacular language and whimsical formatting, creating a braid of technique as delicate as a contrail. You can read the full piece below:
 

Related: Some other Radical Art Review shit

 

meet me in the jet stream

love, when your day comes

I’m up here dreaming of

the mischief we’ll make

you and me, two bits

of a boundless breeze


rally the clouds into rude shapes

above the country club (you’ve

always had a knack for organizing)


lift the kite of every skint kid

killing time in a scrubby field (betcha

we could keep their eyes off the cans)


rest our orbitals

together again

and sink, so chill

we awaken a seed (and now

would you look what we’ve done?)


 

Emily Cotman (she/they) writes in the margins of the workweek and dabbles in reanimating the dead. Drawing on her history as a science museum educator, her current work revolves around wonder and connection. Emily's words have found loving homes with Lumpen, Zero Readers, The Madrigal, and Rough Trade Books, among others. She lives gratefully on unceded Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫʼ land. Find her on Twitter and Instagram under @emilycotman.


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