Emerging Poet Award Finalist: “SimpleMan” by Shams Alkamil
SimpleMan
She eats sleep thrice a day,
chewing on memories of your future entrance.
in lily fields, balloon waters, or
lands desolate of male gaze.
Until a simpleman who wears vendettas for difficultwomen,
like a child wears mama before they are born,
gulps bites of her dream-meals &even though he can’t stomach it.
& to seek revenge, she will cut pieces of her difficultwomen heart
with her difficultwomen cutting board, made out of her difficultwomen limbs.
& rush off to grind in a simpleman mortar/pestle,
&revel in why he can’t stomach it.
& she leaps to play with the lilies as your scent lingers.
MAVERICK POET AWARD FINALIST “SimpleMan”
Shams Alkamil [she/her/hers] believes in holding space for Black neurodivergents. She is Sudanese-American, and often questioned her identity as a Black woman living in the heart of the Middle East. Her work started as unconstructed poems to calm down the chaos of an unforgiving neurotypical world. She aims to pass limits of rhythmic poetry, explore ideas of hybrid identities, and give a presence to unheard maternal ancestors.
In 2022, she published West 24th Street to highlight the anchor a location has on trauma. Her work is forthcoming in Mizna’s SWANA issue. Along with writing, she was a secondary teacher to economically-disadvantaged youth. She is currently based in Austin, Texas and plans to publish her second book, When Time is Circular, in due time.