new from above/ground press: Words Are What You Get / You Do It For Real, poems and prose poems, by Stephanie Gray

Words Are What You Get / You Do It For Real
poems and prose poems
Stephanie Gray
$5

“I couldn’t think of what to say / words just vanished in a haze”  … Thompson Twins

Words are what you get

That’s what you get for wanting time to stand still. It’s like the mafia – even if you’re out, you’re in. They don’t do nothing. We are in the red every single month. There is a muscle memory to it. Don’t you remember? It’s when your mind breaks but your muscles don’t. Even if they’re sore you don’t notice like when the sky is sort of blue and sort of white, now that you look at it, but you’re not. You’re just noticing. And just noticing is not the same as knowing. And just knowing is not the same as feeling. And just feeling is not the same as realizing. And just realizing is not the same as understanding. And just understanding is not the same as really getting it. And just really getting it is not the same as living it. And just living it is not the same as having been through it. And just having been through it is not the same as you were there. And just that you were there doesn’t mean you really were. And just thinking you were really there doesn’t mean we think of you any differently. And because we don’t think of you any differently, you don’t matter. And because you don’t matter, we don’t listen to you. And because we don’t listen to you, you are annoyed. And because you are annoyed, you ignore us. And because you ignore us, we disappear.

published in Ottawa by above/ground press
March 2019
a/g subscribers receive a complimentary copy

Stephanie Gray is Stephanie Gray is the author of five poetry collections including two books, Shorthand and Electric Language Stars (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2015) and Heart Stoner Bingo (Straw Gate Books, 2007), and four chapbooks including A Country Road Going Back in Your Direction (Argos Books, 2015); Place Your Orders Now! (Belladonna, 2014) and I Thought You Said It Was Sound /How Does That Sound? (PPYYL, 2012). Her poetry publications include Brooklyn Rail, Boog City, EOAGH, The Recluse, and she often reads poetic texts live with her films, performing at the Poetry Project and Segue series, among others. Her critical work on poetics has been published in Jacket2, Reconstruction, Futurepost, and Coldfront. Her super 8 films have screened internationally at fests such as Oberhausen, Viennale and venues such as San Francisco Cinematheque, Microscope Gallery, and a retrospective at Anthology Film Archives.

This is Gray's second above/ground press title, after Go Under The Surface (2018).

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