Hello Friends,
We're going for a very different take on Southern California in today's poem from the Vietnamese American poet Paul Tran. I find this persona piece absolutely beautiful and absolutely terrifying at the same time. Tran is a champion slam poet but also uses form on the page, which I find a delightful combination — notice how this poem's form creates a tension with its wild subject matter. Oh and Tran uses they/them pronouns, which just makes them extra awesome in my book!
For those of you who aren't familiar: the Santa Ana winds are a powerful weather force in Southern Calfornia that, among other things, can cause wildfires to spread over massive areas. Anna Wintour has been editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine since 1988 (which is about 200 in trendy magazine years). And a foehn is a special name for a warm, dry, downslope wind.
Thanks to Matilda for introducing me to this poem.
Enjoy.
Ellen
Desert born. Wild
As corn. Dry
Bitch. Itchy clit.
Meteorologists
Measure me
With mercury;
Police with murder rates.
But I’m neither
Mercurial nor monstrous.
Everything I touch
Explodes with flame.
Everything got the hots
For me.
I’m flamboyant.
I’m a witch
Still burning
At the stake.
My red dress
Right off the runway.
So Vogue
I make you death
Drop. So gorgeous
I make you drop
Dead. Jesus Christ.
My winter will last
Longer than Wintour.
Foehn named
After Saint Anne
—mother of the mother
of the Messiah—
I’m the only testament.
Apocrypha.
Apocalypse.
Take my word
For it. For God
Sent me to Eden.
To Sodom.
To Southern California.
Like a Real Housewife
Holding a butter knife
To her husband’s neck,
God sent me
Here to rinse and repeat,
To singe this land
Of sin, singing
That Eagle’s song.
Haven’t you heard me
Howling down the cliffs,
The dark desert highway,
Swishing my hips
Into the Cajon
Like a lovesick coyote?
All thrash. All ass.
Deep-throat. Whip-
Lash. I bat
My eyes, and Los Angeles
Lights up
Like a cigarette. Ash-
Tray to ashtray.
Angels no different
From Lucifer
Falling all around
me. LOL. So wow.
Much merry-go-round.
Very Mary. Go
Round up
Your little lambs.
Nothing is safe
From me. Try me.
Give me the trial
Of the century.
Give me Liberty,
Or give me Death
Valley. I want
all the flowers kneeling.
■
Paul Tran's "The Santa Ana" can be found in The Quarry: A Social Justice Poetry Database, maintained by the DC-based poetry org Split This Rock.