Our Own Soft
by Katie Clark

katie clark is twenty years old and from the south. currently, katie studies anthropology and creative writing in the pioneer valley. they have worked with as220 and vagabond city lit in order to take part in conversations around what it means to make/be/participate in an artistic community. 
katie tweets ​@octupiwallst
11/26/17 Update
"february water" has been nominated for 2017's Pushcart Prize !!

​CHECK KATIE READING A POEM FROM THEIR N!P CHAP IN THE RAIN(!):

Praise for our Own Soft

"Katie Clark's collection is a fierce journey into gender and sexual identity. They say, "I wake up with your body my body" and "I was a boy until I wasn't a boy." These lines are absolutely what we need right now. The collection is self-conscious about its own body and explores what it means to fall deeply into the abyss of others' bodies when you are barely living in your own." 
–Joanna Valente, Marys of the Sea (The Operating System)
"the poems of our own soft refuse to protect us from sharp edges as we unravel their secrets in the low light of unsleep. to move forward we rely on remembered litanies, associating to make ripples. imperfect perfect summer / orange at the edges / water / water / what clothes / which trees to bother climbing / what do you see when you try to see yourself / what do you see when looking back over your shoulder? is this nostalgia or something else invented to stand in its place? either way, it feels sun-warm: a snake coiled on a rock that may strike or may stay still as death. Clark writes, “it doesn’t always happen in the order that it happened,” then throws the past in the air like confetti / like releasing a hive of bees to hunt for what is sweet, stinging as they seek the honey out.
–Emily O'Neill, Pelican (YesYes Books)
"The need to unearth something, no matter how painful. Katie Clark’s debut collection, our own soft, takes the toil of memory in grip and wrestles with it in full force. Tackling love, loss, violence, and gender this collection is a fresh look into contemporary poetry and the work of memory." 
–John McCracken @ Glass Poetry