JP Seabright captures the excitement and ‘gay abandon’ of queer love in ‘Life’s A Butch’ and treats us to a selection of gorgeous visual poems and collages from their upcoming collection, An Attempt At Exhausting An Undergraduate Essay.
Life’s A Butch
you’re off your tits again tonight / heady with excitement / shaking with nerves / but hiding it all behind borrowed bravado / Brylcreem and bovver boi boots / your tits secured-obscured / bound & gagged with bragging rights from fag hag nights / you are my handsome potent King ready to take your crown / strapped down and sorted with socks for balls / fake fur on chest / ‘tache drawn on and eyebrows thickened / you could get arrested for disturbing my peace / your piece feels heavy in your hands / fake dicks are always stiff / and after the artifice / the lights and the lip-sync / you’re going to fuck someone with it tonight / ‘cos “Life’s a butch and then you die” / has always been your war cry / and even after the warpaint’s rubbed off / you’ll always go down fighting / and you always go down on me / you like to warm up your act that way / speaking in tongues / of tongues / with tongues / I’ve forgotten all your pronouns / so I just call you boy / but that does not make me your girl / I’m no one’s bit of fluff / we fuck with gay abandon / randomly accessing mammaries / but only when you let me / cos you’re off your tits again tonight / I know I’m not allowed to say it / I love you all the more for it / your chrysalis transformations / but I’ll miss them when they’re gone
Please note ‘Life’s A Butch’ was first published in Powders Press’ special ‘Gender’ issue (3), June 2022, on their site.
About JP Seabright
JP Seabright (she/they) is a queer writer living in London. They have three pamphlets published: Fragments from Before the Fall: An Anthology in Post-Anthropocene Poetry by Beir Bua Press; the erotic memoir NO HOLDS BARRED by Lupercalia Press, and GenderFux, a collaborative poetry pamphlet, by Nine Pens Press. More info at https://jpseabright.com and via Twitter @errormessage
These poems were commissioned for our latest mini-series, Our Body’s Bodies
Everything is written on the body – but what does it mean to write about our bodies in the era of Covid-19? And is it possible to write about bodily experiences in the face of such pervasive and continued violence? Using different modes of writing and art making, Lucy Writers presents a miniseries featuring creatives whose work, ideas and personal experiences explore embodiment, bodily agency, the liberties imposed on, taken with, or found in our bodies. Beginning from a position of multiplicity and intersectionality, our contributors explore their body’s bodies and the languages – visual, linguistic, aural, performance-based and otherwise – that have enabled them to express and reclaim different forms of (dis)embodiment in the last two years. Starting with the body(s), but going outwards to connect with encounters that (dis)connect us from the bodies of others – illness, accessibility, gender, race and class, work, and political and legal precedents and movements – Our Body’s Bodies seeks to shine a light on what we corporally share, as much as what we individually hold true to.
Bringing together work by artistic duo Kathryn Cutler-MacKenzie and Ben Caro, poet Emily Swettenham, writer and poet Elodie Rose Barnes, author Ayo Deforge, writer and researcher Georgia Poplett, writer and poet Rojbîn Arjen Yigit, writer and researcher Hannah Hutchings-Georgiou and many others, as well as interviews with and reviews of work by Elinor Cleghorn, Lucia Osbourne Crowley and Alice Hattrick, Lucy Writers brings together individual stories of what our bodies have endured, carried, suffered, surpassed, craved and even enjoyed, because…these bodies are my body; we are a many bodied being. Touch this one, you move them all, our bodies’ body.
We also welcome pitches and contributions from writers, artists, film-makers and researchers outside of the Lucy Writers’ community. Please inquire for book reviews too.
For submissions relating to trans and non-binary culture email dytorfrankie@gmail.com
For poetry submissions email elodierosebarnes@gmail.com
For reviews, prose submissions, artwork and general inquiries email hannah.hutchings-georgiou.16@ucl.ac.uk
Submissions are open from 6 January 2022 until the end of April 2022.
For the full Call Out, click here. Read the series so far here.
Feature image detail from (extracts from) An Attempt at Exhausting an Undergraduate Essay by JP Seabright
