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Best Poems Written by Grace Zha

Below are the all-time best Grace Zha poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

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Dialysis

I walk with my sister and we are young
And her knees are less broken; they swallow
petrel calls and soon we are
equivalent. I call these my oceans. I
shriek with my sister, we wished the 
evenings would take our wolf-like sounds
and make us un-speeched. 
We are straight and know the meaning of 
artificiality. It is this:
jingoism, pesticide,
beaches steeped in rich, naked men.
I promise to protect my sister from optimism,
and together we are impatiently
consumed by mosquito thirst. When we grow
pale, I offer her dirty laundry,
grass stains. In her mind, she is already
past alternatives, and has forgotten
those rhythms. Beneath the ocean, I am
subdued and I am drowning in inanity
And there is a chain wrapped around my sisters
foot; really it is a snake. I am
bellowing the chains, willing her to acquiesce,
but she whispers to the snake,
sweetly, and it slackens, and she is walking
into naked beaches.

Details | Grace Zha Poem

Drunk In a Barre

Once manifested on the 
heel of Adagio in G major,
balancés and assemblés from 
the back hand. Baryshnikov told
me to flatten my stomach, so I 
repressed the urge to
breathe; suffocation is
incandescence by the barre.

Then I looked in the mirror and the 
mirror glared back in contempt- the meat, the
pillow I nursed in my belly, the spine, 
always sagging like the pools of honey in my knees. I
shoveled over some Hydroxycut and pride, and bribed
it to be my lover.

Quitting was hard, unless I never
did it. Unless I cigarette-butted
my way out of Saturday rehearsals. Timed death. 
As if I could peel a stopwatch from
nodules of encephalon, shake it in front
of Svetlana- ‘I have a rendez-vous with
the Pope, my future is to become a 
world-class wine connoisseur, wine 
demands an open mouth, not skinny torsos and 
high relevé’ 

Little girls always dream in the soles of pink pointe shoes,
but magic approximates deception and the infamous
split blooded toe. 

My mother has the home tapes. Me shanae-ing on 
kitchen floor so close to the bowl of kiwis I could sense
the lanate growth. Then I got dizzy. Then I fell and 
sprained the right ankle. It’s been
twenty-two Broadway shows, twenty-three if you
count the one where Price made us tap dance
on Eighth Avenue to prove to Lenny that we were
diverse and versatile (I don’t know how to tap).


Now, my feet are lumps of unheated coal and a post-it
note folds on the desk of your office, green like the tea I 
brew on Saturday afternoons. That,
I guess, must be resignation.

Details | Grace Zha Poem

Intro To Departure

I.
“A hiatus, not a parting.”
I waited until stones gathered
on the mothy carpet of the 
living room. Then I stopped,
like mothers and fathers, 
the un-watered 
Delphiniums window-side.

II.
Laid a rusted finger on
the lip, the dredged ice,
Alaskan wind, a single
prayer before expatriation and
a loaf of pennies.
You don’t know what 	
opportune means (question mark)

III.
A thousand chests,
the ribs crumbling;
it’s a melody, a syncopation, some 
Eucharist pre-hymnal tonal exercise.
We all waited for false angels,
the permanence of grief.

Details | Grace Zha Poem

Poetry Advice

This is not a poem, but since National Writing Day was a couple of days ago, I thought I would share a couple of words of advice for writing that come from my personal experience, writing workshops, and other authors. To anybody who stumbles upon this- I hope it helps with your experience as a writer!

Write prolifically. Write at threes in the mornings. Write everything- limericks, sonnets, minimalist poetry, essays disguised as poetry. Expect the worst to receive the best; good poetry almost always comes as a surprise. Write to rewrite a thousand times. Find some inspirational poets and try to emulate their work until you realize you can't- not because you're bad but because you're not them. Avoid cliches. Write not to make others realize but to make yourself realize. 

And lastly, write not to win awards or money or recognition. Write because you truly, truly desire to write.

Details | Grace Zha Poem

Al Dente

To
reek
of blouse 
sweat. Kindle
inanity like
living room fire, mothers in
coarse grain. Steeped in organic growth. Saturday’s swelled yeast.