dustin brookshire, denise duhamel, beth gylys / two poems

Dustin Brookshire, Denise Duhamel

Scream Queen Villanelle

A contoured villanelle* using “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath

When I was a kid, I loved to play dead

after watching Halloween again & again.

At my desk I feigned sleep, a knucklehead 

dreaming of being a scream queen, my red 

blood splashed across a screen at the drive-in. 

When I was a kid, I loved to play dead

pulling my covers tight, trapped in my bed 

so sure I'd be strangled by someone insane.

At my desk I feigned sleep, a knucklehead

refusing to be forgotten, not willing to fade— 

to live on in film with other killer women.

When I was a kid, I loved to play dead,

escaping the boogie man, as Laurie said,

before she survived by changing her name.

At my desk I feigned sleep, a knucklehead  

envying Laurie. She didn’t run, instead—

off with his head!—never to fear Michael again.

When I was a kid, I loved to play dead.

At my desk I feigned sleep, a knucklehead.

*A contoured villanelle takes the end words from each line of an existing villanelle, matching end words in the same order to construct a new villanelle. 

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Dustin Brookshire, Denise Duhamel, Beth Gylys

Presidential Circus Villanelle

A contoured villanelle using “Gratuitous Oranges” by David Shapiro

Life was hard when the president was orange,

his decisions were stained with a greenish tinge. 

Some faces nearly froze in expressions of cringe

as trick-or-treaters carved Trump-o'-lanterns, orange

parents attending a MAGA party in a garage.

We held our breath when the president was orange.

We choked on juice and cursed the harvest moon, orange

& removed our protest signs & rally gear from storage. 

Watching the evening news, we’d curse and cringe,

eating Cheetos and Circus Peanuts, an all-out binge

listening to the wannabe dictator discuss ways to impinge 

on refugees and lefties, his face so orange,   

his white-collar crimes so dirty, not even a laver le linge

would cleanse. He’s placed at the hinge 

between bad and worse deeds to make us cringe--

I shut off the TV, my cell, trying to expunge 

the xenophobia, & his face, so damn orange. 

We were tested when the president was orange

by his citrus squeeze. His mug, an eclipse, that made us cringe. 

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Dustin Brookshire (he/him) is the recipient of the 2024 Jon Tribble Editors Fellowship awarded by Poetry at the Sea, and his chapbooks include Repeat As Needed (Harbor Editions, 2025), Never Picked First For Playtime (Harbor Editions, 2023), Love Most Of You Too (Harbor Editions, 2021), and To The One Who Raped Me (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012). Along with Julie E. Bloemeke, he is the co-editor of Let Me Say This: A Dolly Parton Poetry Anthology, and the editor of the forthcoming chapbook anthology When I Was Straight: A Tribute To Maureen Seaton (Harbor Anthologies, 2024). More at dustinbrookshire.com. 

Denise Duhamel’s (she/her) most recent books of poetry are Pink Lady (Pitt Poetry Series, 2025), Second Story (2021) and Scald (2017). Blowout (2013) was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. In Which (2024) is a winner of the Rattle Chapbook Prize. She and the late Maureen Seaton co-authored five collections, the most recent of which was CAPRICE (Collaborations: Collected, Uncollected, and New) (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2015). Her nonfiction publications include The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose (with Julie Marie Wade, Noctuary Press, 2019). A recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, she is a distinguished university professor in the MFA program at Florida International University in Miami. More at linktr.ee/deniseduhamel.

Award-winning author and the co-founder/Principal Investigator of Beyond Bars, a Mellon sponsored literary journal for incarcerated writers and artists, Beth Gylys (she/her) is the author of five books of poetry—the last two (The Conversation Turns to Wide Mouth Jars—co-written with Cathy Carlisi and Jennifer Wheelock—and Body Braille) were both named Books All Georgians Should Read. Her work has recently appeared in West Branch, The James Dickey Review, and on the Best American Poetry blog. More at linktree.com/bethgylys.