Diamond Forde
DIAMOND FORDE's debut book, Mother Body, was selected by Patricia Smith for the Saturnalia 2019 Poetry Prize and will be forthcoming in Spring 2021. She is a Callaloo and Tin House fellow whose work has appeared in Tupelo Quarterly, Ninth Letter, The Offing,and more. She is the recipient of the 2019 Margaret Walker Memorial Prize, finalist for the 2019 Georgia Poetry Prize, the Pleaides Press Editor Prize, and the 3rd place winner for the Frontier Poetry Award for New Poets. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Creative Writing at Florida State University. Source
fat girl Confuses Food & Therapy, Again
after Jennifer Jackson Berry
Who hasn’t carved a fork
through a cut of cake and tasted
dollar store crowns, neon streamers,
wind-up toys coruscating on the rug
like confetti, tune of our skittering
shoes, fingers hooked to scoop
jam from the sandwiches, thumbs plump
as blackberries in our wild, wagging
mouths—those honeyed years
before I understood my body’s struggle
against the morning’s golden net.
Now, the patterned progress of neighbors
through the day’s long maw goes grayscale
and the nearby train scrambling the tracks
hums like static. My partner slabs
his tongue inside me, layers each lick
like strips of papier-mâché. I should tell him
there’s no use, but instead pour ink-like
to the fridge for another bite of cake,
feel, finally, like a bird’s nest, its delicate dip
of twig and twine, slip a new gown
of frosting on my tongue, hope what sugars
stays long enough for one of us to taste it.
Published:
2019
Length:
Regular
Literary Movements:
Contemporary
Anthology Years:
2021
Themes:
Body & Body Image
Food
Literary Devices:
After Poems
A poem where the form, theme, subject, style, or line(s) is inspired by the work another poet.
Alliteration
the repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of words appearing in succession
Interrupted Clause
a word group (a statement, question, or exclamation) that interrupts the flow of a sentence and is usually set off by commas, dashes, or parentheses
Litany
Initially a prayer or supplication used in formal and religious processions, the litany has been more recently adopted as a poetic form that catalogues a series. This form typically includes repetitious phrases or movements, sometimes mimicking call-and-response.
Sensory Detail
words used to invoke the five senses (vision, hearing, taste, touch, smell)