second body
Naana Eyikuma Hutchful
Naana Eyikuma Hutchful is a Ghanaian writer with work appearing in Pithead Chapel, Bending Genres, Gone Lawn, Maudlin House and forthcoming elsewhere. They like sunrises, baja blasts, and Wong Kar Wai films.
Why Taylor Loved it:
Ok bear with me because this might get long. I read this on the Thursday it was submitted (which is rare bc life) and I spent all weekend thinking about it which means this may have been one of my quicker acceptances and I stand by that. I just think it got under my skin and that’s a good sign that a poem is working for me, working in me.
The lack of punctuation functions so well to bring the reader into the subconscious self. It keeps the pace moving and allows for the tempo of the poem to gradually pick up. It also adds to the dissociation of both the speaker and the reader. Lack of punctuation is a bold move to be sure, and sometimes I read poems and I’m like you really needed at least some commas here BUT it is so perfect for this poem, I can’t imagine it any other way.
Also, can we talk about the growing dread in the readers stomach? Because of the ever increasing tempo, the reader feeling a need for punctuation that won’t be answered, there is a building tension driving the momentum of the poem ever onward. Perfectly leading up to the fully dissociative moment at the end.
It's a poem worth spending some time with. Naana is making some really great moves here and you can learn a lot from this poem.
Ok one more thing: I don't have the best memory, I'm not one of those people who can memorize poems and spout of lines or anything like that (it is genuinely one of my biggest poetry insecurities) but that line "I have to know stepdads and blue-eyed boys at parties can see when you are broken" is seared into my mind. The dam of tension breaks for me in that moment and all I feel is heartache and anger and I want to take the speaker of the poem in gentle arms because that is what they deserve. Idk this poem just really wrecked me and I feel like it's an honor to put it out in the world.
Interview:
Why did you choose Team Taylor?
Because the very first words I wrote for this poem was my body. Because I had read Taylor's HAD piece Coach and wished I had written it. Because a lot of my work is religious trauma and so while this particular piece doesn't directly reference it, I felt that it was inherent in its conception and I had a feeling that Taylor would appreciate that aspect of it. Because it just made sense.
The lack of punctuation really adds to the sense of dissociation with this poem. If you feel comfortable, talk to me about the process of writing this poem?
I had wanted to explore the topic for a long time but never thought I could quite pull it off. This poem came to me almost fully formed, on the train, with punctuation. I got it all out as fast as I could and put it away for weeks. When I was finally able to read through it, I realized that the catharsis of writing it was in how much of a getting things off my chest that it felt. I felt that a reader would need to see it in that way. Punctuation was something that was proper, a requirement to rein things in, and by extension a form of censorship that a speaker already beating themselves up did not need. Taking it away equated vulnerability, of something being able to be potent and important without being perfect, or even correct. I had two copies, one with punctuation and one without. I read them both aloud how I imagined the poem to play out. For the one with punctuation I paused when I needed to, raised my voice at question marks and it just did not feel real. When I took out the punctuation, leaving just one(easter egg?) I realized what it did. How something that seems to happen to you over and over also feels as though it happens outside of you, how something that is so much a part of you also feels like something you can never own.
This poem is on the conversation side in its language, why did it need to be written like that?
This poem is an eye to eye conversation with a person whose presence permeates your skin, who you carry everywhere with you like an ill-hidden brand, and how that makes you build a fucked up sort of intimacy with the one person you could never truly be intimate with, but who it somehow feels can reach into the dark recesses of your mind, how in the moments when you blame yourself the hardest you can almost forgive them, how because they had been there at one of your lowest points they are the only person that its okay to share all the other bad parts with.