Allison Wall

In a plot twist I didn’t see coming, I have two poems scheduled for publication in June and July 2024.

“Step 1: Sand, Clay, Fire” will appear in ONE ART.

“The Body of God” will appear in Thimble Literary Magazine.

…and there’s more where that came from!

Doing everything in my power not to utter the cliche, but it would not be false to say, “I was a poet and was not previously aware of my status as such.”

These two poems belong to a chapbook/collection in development that I hope to publish someday.

Why this shift into poetry? Where did all these poems come from?

These are great questions. I have some answers, but probably not all. The creative process is a spiritual, mysterious experience.

There were things I needed, desperately, to process through writing. I thought maybe I’d write a memoir or a set of personal essays. I even thought it could be a series of blog posts for this platform. But every time I tried, it was like the ouroboros (the snake eating its own tail). I couldn’t find a starting point. The material wouldn’t let me in. It was like trying to jump onto a merry-go-round already in motion. All of it felt connected in a way that didn’t lend it self to the linearity of voice or prose.

Then, without even meaning to, I put one little piece into a poem. That poem was quickly joined by two, three, five, ten more. It felt like the Muse saw someone was accepting poetry, and She poured them out to me. Writing poetry feels like channeling something (an idea, a strong emotion), and the goal is to present it in its most sublime form.

The collage of a poetry collection also offered the scope I needed while giving me permission to abandon that linear sense of plot or storytelling that would be expected in memoir.

After sharing these poems with some trusted friends and writers, and after a bit of tidying up, I started sending them out. Why not? I had a good rhythm established for submitting fiction. I did have a bit of a learning curve, researching places to send poems, but it wasn’t too difficult.

I started submitting poems January 23, 2024, and had my first acceptance February 10, 2024. The second came on April 1, 2024 (no fooling!), and I have other poems out on submission as we speak.

Receiving positive feedback on poetry felt especially poignant. In fiction, there are shields between the words and the writer: point of view, character, voice, plot, etc. In poetry, no such shield exists. At least, not in the poetry I am writing.

And this is what I’ve been dancing around, if you couldn’t tell: the subject matter I needed to express. These poems hold parts of who I am and my experience that I have not addressed openly, directly. The prospective collection’s title is The Cup and Other Abominations: Queer Deconstruction Poems. In it, there are poems about menstruation and communion, the struggle for belonging, and the liberating power of sexual desire (see also: Poor Things). There are poems that give voice to Biblical women whose words were never recorded. There are poems that reclaim my own strength and goodness from a dogma that taught me helplessness and worthlessness. These are poems about finding life and divinity in my own right-now experience, not offloading it onto some other being or future time.

These poems explore the transformational process of deconstructing from evangelical fundamental Christianity and the queer awakening that was only possible after. Deconstruction, sexuality, and the feminine divine: the most unholy trinity.

Specifically, “Step 1: Clay, Sand, Fire” describes deconstruction as I experienced it in a tactile, sensory way. “The Body of God” yearns to reclaim the female body as Divine, and traces some of the damage, some of the things lost, since the rise of patriarchy over the last millennia.

I am ready to share the parts of myself contained in these poems. I hope they are met with goodwill and celebration.

But as anyone knows who has deconstructed or explored their gender and sexuality and come to non-heteronormative conclusions, there are people who will not be happy for me about this. There are people who remember old versions of me, versions that were so heavily masked they didn’t know themselves. This may not sit well with them.

That’s fine.

I don’t exist to fit in or to placate. The Autistic wiring of my brain and nervous system have made that very clear to me. I exist to experience authentically. I exist to liberate myself from the cobwebs, ropes, and chains of Expectation, and to live, without restriction, as myself.

Your reactions belong to you. I am ready to be misunderstood, the cautionary tale, the old friend you gossip about, the queer feminist pagan you try to keep your children from becoming. Your children will find their way home with or without your help, and I and others like me will be here waiting to love them unconditionally when they arrive.

This is me, taking up space, as a deconstructed, queer, Autistic person. If that makes you uncomfortable, I hope you take time to figure out why. And then to ponder what “unconditional love” and “freedom” really mean. To look at the ableism and homophobia and “us vs. them” threaded through every part of white fundamental evangelical U.S. culture. To wonder if any of your reaction is a projection of how you feel about yourself. Each one of us counts as a person to love and care for. Loving yourself is the best and most immediate and lifegiving thing you can do.

So. Anyway. Poems. There will be two poems this summer, and maybe more in the future. I hope you read them, and I hope whatever I channeled into them, consciously or un-, reaches you.

And if you’re thinking about writing poetry, watch out! I already have a second collection brewing about reclaiming my Autistic self through the spiritual experience of being in the natural world and feeling the thrill of perfect connection.

Once the poems know where you live, they just keep coming…