issue two

march 6, 2018

editors’ note

Hello! You windless whispers, you soaring manatees of justice. It is us, your Underblong editors, Sam and Chen and a few of our fallen eyelashes, back with a completely breathtaking second issue. Come rest your gills at the ocean-side, put down your wings and lay here, for this time, lost in the words of such brilliance and wit.

This issue comes at an important time for us: we are being reminded of our sacred selves, that we deserve to spend our late evenings, early mornings, afternoon naps, doing what is best for us, best for our hearts. We are also reminded, as we are every day, that we are fighting in this world and carving our dreams into it, that we are abolishing prisons, dismantling police forces, melting each and every weapon away, in our minds, with our words, in every part of what we create. We are on the job not going with the status quo, disrupting business as usual. We are in these beaurocratic machines saying, enough, enough, enough of this process just meant to break our spirits, our ideals.

We are doing this work, though it is not easy. We have had immense trouble getting out of our beds, wiping week-old dirt off the windows, getting off our dirty sex tumblrs. We are lounging and tweeting and deeply tired of all your bullshit, all this institutional bullshit.

And yet, these poems punch our pallets, make our mouths scream for brighter futures. Mag Gabbert repeats “I need a tissue,” and we say, thank goodness, we need tissues, too. Hannah Rego explains that “I’m glad you’ve got such a shiny treehouse.  / I’m ~ so glad ~~” and our joy falls with us from every rainbow, spending an eternity climbing the clouds. Brett Hanley falls in love with Bigfoot and just haven’t we all.

These poems gurgle and toil and launch our bodies to dance, from our wiggling toes to our careening clavicles, walking around saying yes, most certainly, thank you. We are seen in our most inner selves and nuzzled, thoroughly.

And there are so many incredible poets to read here! We just had to keep accepting more and more! I mean, wouldn’t you? Who would have thought that just after one inaugural issue, these poets would perfectly understand our blongy ways, our playful seriousness? These poems explode everything we thought a poetry journal could accomplish, could be. 

Friends. Sweet lovers, first-time meeters. Welcome to Underblong, issue two. Where the magic lives.

Love, 
Sam & Chen

P.S. Special thanks to Jeff Gilbert for helping us with the audio files <3

poems

Hannah Rego - “In the future, my gender” and “I Remember the Precise Moment of Learning Certain Words, like Jostled, like Corrugated” and “(One More Time) for the people in the back”

Logan February - “The Honest Lie”

Mag Gabbert - “Fever” and “Donut”

Aeon Ginsberg - “Springtime as Judith” and “Angel Olsen Says Every Artist Should Title A Piece unfucktheworld”

Stevie Edwards - “Harm’s Way”

Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach - “Sure as Superstition”

Omar Sakr - “Sky Orchards (or, The Hazards of Being A Fruit)”

Alex Hall - “for roses”

Kimberly Quiogue Andrews - “Other Deluges” and “Some Mirages of the Heat-Addled”

Brett Hanley - “I Should Have Loved Bigfoot Instead”

Rajiv Mohabir - “Hybrid Unidentified Whale”

Katherine Gibbel - “Send Nudes (My tree was the selfie stick…)” and “Send Nudes (I want to talk about the nakedness…)”

Keegan Lester - “The Abridged Version of the Newscast for Breece d’j Pancake”

Matty Layne Glasgow - “All Afternoon”

Jane Wong - “Dinner and A” and “When You Died”

Emilia Phillips - “If You Wanna Make Sense Whatcha Lookin at Me For?” and “Moonpie”