Philly Poetry Chapbook Review is pleased to present Christine Kitano’s poem “Disguise” as our first featured chapbook poem of Issue 3: May/June 2024. You can find more of her poetry in her award-winning chapbook from Texas Review Press, Dumb Luck & other poems.
Disguise
When I bought the dress, I envisioned myself
Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday, midline
embraced and buckled, spinning through
the Piazza della Rotonda, eating an ice cream
on the Spanish Steps (only the scoop, she discards
the cone), her waist that impossible vanishing
center, the pinprick pupil of an iris, the ink-
dark core of a pink anemone. How I longed
for the ease of that body on screen, the razor-
erect posture ferrying her ballerina figure
from scene to scene. What daughter isn’t taught
to want this, to want to be this
princess in disguise. Of course, the dress never
fit. Even when it zipped, it puckered
around the hips and slumped from my shoulders
like loose bandaging. But I bought it,
imagining I’d one day be the type of person
to wear it, a person it might have been designed to fit.
If I didn’t see your face, I would have thought
you were a white girl, my mother says
when she pulls in to pick me up at LAX,
and she’s grinning, it’s a compliment. She’s filled
my childhood bedroom closet with dresses
from the thrift store, old prom
and bridesmaid gowns in garish colors,
each smelling of stale perfume, sweat,
baby powder, and disinfectant. She slides
one off a hanger and hands it to me—it’s
magenta, a slinky material that writhes
in my fists like an animal. She begs me to try
it on; despite knowing what this will lead to
I relent, pull the cold satin to my shoulders,
brace for that sharp intake of breath then
the zipper’s whine as she eases it, urging
me to suck it in, be thinner, be prettier, be
like a white girl, pleading to a power
that is beyond me but I do what I can
to obey, stand stick still in the dread
blank space before the fabric rips,
the metal teeth seize, a force gives up
its claim and the body—my body—
defiantly reassumes its shape.
(This poem was first published by Quire.)
About the Poem
I began with the image of the dress like “loose bandaging” from dialogue I heard in passing on a TV show about someone’s outfit looking like an ace bandage. I was taken with the image, the idea of clothing being a dressing, the body being a wound, etc. Then, I was watching Roman Holiday and marveling at Audrey Hepburn moving across the screen. These two images formed the foundation of the poem. I give thanks to C. Mikal Oness at Quire for offering a few key edits, and to Chris Buckley for reprinting the poem in SALT.
Christine Kitano
Author Bio
Christine Kitano is the author of the poetry collections Birds of Paradise (Lynx House Press) and Sky Country (BOA Editions), which won the Central New York Book Award and was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. She is coeditor of They Rise Like a Wave (Blue Oak Press), an anthology of Asian American women and nonbinary poets. She is an associate professor in the Lichtenstein Center at Stony Brook University and also serves on the poetry faculty for the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
From Dumb Luck & other poems
Christine Kitano’s Dumb Luck & other poems offers a portrait of a thirty-something Asian American woman who finds herself living in the relative safety of upstate New York before and during the pandemic. In one poem the speaker reflects on current events (the ongoing pandemic, the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing protests, the surge in anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S.) and contrasts these with the peace of rural New York, wondering, “Is this / the reward for good luck, just a more / comfortable survival?” The poems in this collection orbit around this question, providing both lyric and narrative explorations on luck, guilt, and survival. Ultimately, these poems delve into how the otherwise mundane questions of selfhood and identity for a gendered and racialized body take on greater urgency during times of increased social unrest, panic, and violence.
Contents
Check out new poetry books published the week of 5/7 from Stanchion Books, Black Ocean, Andrews McMeel Publishing, Picador UK, Mercer University Press, Wave Books, Alice James Books, Graywolf Press, Copper Canyon Press, BOA Editions Ltd, Black Lawrence Press, Grayson Books, Bloodaxe Books and CavanKerry Press.
Chapbook Poem: Disguise by Christine Kitano
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for May 2024, “Disguise” from Dumb Luck & other poems by Christine Kitano, along with a few words from the poet.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 5/14 from Finishing Line Press, Black Ocean, University of Queensland Press, She Writes Press, White Pine Press, Curbstone Books, New Directions, W. W. Norton & Company, Omnidawn, NYRB Poets, Anvil Press and an editor’s pick from Copper Canyon Press.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 5/21 from Seren, Finishing Line Press, Diode Editions, Copper Canyon Press, Nightboat Books, Milkweed Editions, CavanKerry Press, Invisible Publishing, Holy Cow! Press, Wake Forest University Press, Zephyr Press, Querencia Press, YesYes Books, Coach House Books and Rose Books.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 5/28 from Tupelo Press, Diode Editions, McSweeney’s Publishing, Michigan State University Press, Caitlin Press Inc., Carcanet Press Ltd., White Pine Press, Deep Vellum Publishing, Hat & Beard Press, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Copper Canyon Press, Sagging Meniscus, The Song Cave, Finishing Line Press and Broken Sleep Books.
Check out new poetry books for the week of 6/4 from Bored Wolves, Scribner, Coach House Books, House of Anansi Press, Biblioasis, Button Poetry, Seagull Books, Jackleg Press, Green Linden Press and Central Avenue Publishing.
Chapbook Poem: Like a Honeypot by Stefanie Kirby
Read the featured Chapbook Poem of the Month for June 2024, “Like a Honeypot” from Fruitful by Stefanie Kirby, along with a few words from the poet.
Check out new poetry chapbooks from Cathexis Northwest Press, Diode Editions, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, Seren Books, Grayson Books, Querencia Press, Ugly Duckling Presse, The Poetry Box and Finishing Line Press.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 6/11 from The Poetry Box, Finishing Line Press, YesYes Books, Burnside Review Press, Row House Publishing, Deep Vellum Publishing, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Phoneme Media, Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Lynx House Press, Alice James Books and Inhabit Media.
May/June ‘24 Editor’s Note: Aldon Lynn Nielsen
While PCR contributors C.M. Crockford, Drishya, and myself work on reviews for our fourth issue and beyond, our May/June issue only has one editorial feature– the first in what I hope to be a series of long interviews with veteran poets.
A Conversation with Aldon Lynn Nielsen
Poet-scholar Aldon Lynn Nielsen shares about his work, his recent chapbook, and poetry in general in this collaborative interview piece with editor Aiden Hunt.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 6/18 from Finishing Line Press, YesYes Books, Belle Point Press and Red Hen Press.
Check out new poetry books published the week of 6/25 from Finishing Line Press, Nightboat Books, Coach House Books, Pavilion Poetry, LSU Press, Trio House Press, Leapfrog Press, White Pine Press, Carcanet Press Ltd., Dial Press, Milkweed Editions, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux.