
Koss Poetry & Art
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Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect – Now Shipping!

Dancing backwards towards pluperfect
by Koss
Published by Diode Editions
Shipping in October 2024
Dancing Backwards Towards Pluperfect is a poetic assemblage of a life sown outside the predictability of middle-class, straight America, one where the aftermath of repeated trauma and loss is allayed by unexpected moments of connection, empathy, and love.
Koss pens inventive textual routes through life transits, forging head-on through the debris with unflinching vision and grit in a timbre that shifts from existential dread to dark comedy. Part dirge and part survival story, Dancing Backwards transmutes the rubble of trauma, abandonment, grief, and suicide loss into a queer, hybrid elixir, their lived story worthy of telling.
Blog Posts
Asemic Writing in diode poetry by Koss
Very happy to have some asemic writing published in diode poetry this past December. This is the second batch of visual poems Patty Paine published (see previous issue too). For more information about asemic writing, check out this book review in Art News.
Harpy Hybrid Review | Visual Poetry
Honored to have some visual poetry in Harpy Hybrid Review (three pieces included). This is my second publication with them, so I’m thrilled to be invited back. They include questions for the artists to complete describing their process, so I did my best to shed some light. This is a great issue with lots of […]
Gone Lawn Pushcart Nominations 2022
So happy to be among the nominees in Gone Lawn’s Pushcart Nominations 2022 list. Very grateful to Owen Wyke and Amy Copella Barnes. The piece was a flash called The Dictations of Cabbages. Other nominees include Susan Triemert, Betsy Finesilver Haberle, Kim Magowan, James Montgomery, and Olga Musial.
Alternate Thanksgiving Poem
Alternate Thanksgiving (published in Chiron Review, Winter ’24 Issue) In the alternate universe, we dwell—early morn—in the ironiesthat are Thanksgiving, discussing abundance and at whose expense. I am your “Cherokee dude”and in kindness, you pull a comb through my wet tangled hair, wresting the handle with your weight.You wouldn’t mind my pounds of grief, speaking […]
Variant Lit Pushcart Nominations 2022
Surprised and honored to receive my first CNF (creative non-fiction) piece nominated for a Pushcart prize for non-fiction from Variant Literature. Grateful to the editors and wish us all luck!
Hyacinth Review | Koss Poem
Koss has a mystical poem about grief published in Hyacinth Review.
Koss | Some Examples of List Poems
Writing list poetry is a great way to jumpstart your poetry writing. Use it to generate creative material or organize and refine it into finished works. Lists can be as short as a couple of words or extend into more complete thoughts like a Zuihitsu.
Meg Tuite | White Van Review
In White Van, Tuite creates her own genre of darkness, of inescapable trauma drawn in vignettes that smear into a miasma of despair. Point of view shifts and blurs, creating a disembodied, dissociative vibe.
Petrichor Magazine Issue 21 Poetry
Petrichor Issue 21 is full of interesting writing and includes a number of great visual art pieces. My work is an ekphrastic poem about Joan Mitchell’s “The Hudson” painting from the 50s, called “The Hudson Looks Different.” Also included is an asemic art or writing piece, made from old journals and sketchbooks, a palimpsest of […]
Gone Lawn Issue 46 | Flash | Koss
Honored to have cover art and flash in Gone Lawn Issue 46. The artwork is hand drawn, then enhanced digitally. The flash, “The Dictations of Cabbages,” is, I think, a COVID persona piece written in the voice of a carrot on the moon. Okay, I hope I didn’t spoil it. It’s unlike anything I’ve written. […]
Gone Lawn Best of the Net Nominations 2023
Really honored to have my zuihitsu poem, “Again: Holidays” nominated for the 2023 Best of the Net anthology for the poetry category. Very grateful to Owen Wyke and Amy Barnes for the nomination.
Outlook Springs Best of the Net Nominations 2023
Very pleased and surprised to be among Outlook Springs Best of the Net nominees for 2023. My poem, if William Burroughs Were Your Secretary, published in Outlook Springs print journal and online, was nominated. There’s lots of great poetry and fiction you can find on their site. Check out the print issue and my sound […]
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