Carmen Giménez

Carmen Giménez is the author of numerous poetry collections, including Milk and Filth, a finalist for the NBCC Award in Poetry and Be Recorder (Graywolf Press, 2019), which was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award in Poetry, the PEN Open Book Award, the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She was awarded the Academy of American Poets Fellowship Prize in 2020. A 2019 Guggenheim fellow, she served as the publisher of Noemi Press for twenty years. She is Publisher and Executive Director of Graywolf Press. Source (Photo credit: Jason Gardner Photography)

Ode to People Who Hate Me

I hate being hated even though I

provoke it, not by committing major wrongs

like murder, more like a regular

pattern of being selfish or forgetful,

which is another word for selfish.

If you hate me, trust me I know—

in fact, I have a ledger of people, like you,

who hate me, and I rifle through it every

morning obsessing over the names more

than they think about mine—a passing

thought, a microsecond of dislike or worse,

indifference like the Godzilla rays of fire

I feel buzz out of your eyes when

you scroll past my pictures on Instagram.

I should focus on the people who love me,

every therapist I ever had has told me so,

but I don’t need them to love me more,

so that’s pointless. If we hate each other,

I assure you my hate has a trace of love

with a dash of hope. It’s the throbbing

contradiction of hate’s dark thrall.

Published:

2023

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2025

Themes:

Doubt & Fear

Humor & Satire

Mental Health

Poetic Form

Technology