The Poetry of Zorina Exie Frey
“Form can’t hold me. My fleshy vessel contains too much./Metrics can suppress a message. To say, braves feats of strength./What does the Milky Way weigh? What is the meter of galaxy?/Through math, we try to wrap our heads around understanding/Metrics can suppress a message. To say, braves feats of strength./Remember, this world first existed without form. It was void./We use math to filter through our heads, trying to understand./And still, I try to fit in some form, trying to fit in this world.”—by Zorina Exie Frey
Speculative Friction
By Claire Bateman
GREENVILLE South Carolina—(Hubris)—1 August 2023—Zorina Exie Frey, a content writer and Pushcart Prize Winner for her poem “Pee is for Prejudice,” writes, “Each poem is an entity requiring its own unique process. So, there’s never been one way to write a poem for me, even when it’s in form. With that in mind, I want every line to evoke a strong image that has the potential to spin off into its own poem or story.” Her poetry is featured in Chicken Soup for the Soul: I’m Speaking Now, “Glassworks Magazine,” and “swamp pink.” She is a Palm Beach Poetry Festival Langston Hughes Fellow and a Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Voices of Color Fellow. Frey’s poetry is rooted in her experience growing up on a street separating community of color from white ones. As the only African American living on her block, Frey embodies a perspective about American culture and society forged over the course of her adult life. She holds a BA in Mass Communication/Journalism, a certificate in Web Design from Indiana University South Bend, an MFA in Creative Writing/Poetry/Creative Nonfiction from Converse University, and a Certificate in Literary Publishing from Emerson College. Her screenplay, “Harley Quinn Origin,” received an honorable mention at the Birmingham Film Festival in the United Kingdom. She was also a semi-finalist in the TV pilot America’s Next Great Author. She is an editor at 45 Literary Journal. Access her author’s website here .
Donate to the rich family who lost their homes on the coast
“Our poor is not as poor as yours” June Jordan, “Roman Poem Number Three”
Having pulled myself up by my Hoosier bootstraps. Having paid
for an overpriced bachelor’s degree, certificate in web design, I am
still pushing buttons enduring disgusted eyerolls because the paper
stuck together while Xeroxing a copy. I am
incompetent with no attention to detail, my South Bend
supervisor tells his boss I’m not fit enough to take his job. I
am reduced to being a mail girl. Employers see I work at
a prestigious firm, so why would I ever want to leave? I am
stuck like the rich people on the east coast
whose homes were decimated by Sandy.
Rescuers tell survivors, Write your social on your foreheads next time,
so we can identify your body.
I am asked to donate my hard-earned mailroom money
so they can dry their million-dollar homes
and ready their kids to play soccer abroad next year. I am
sounding selfish with a sister on Section 8
who needs winter coats for her kids.
These people are also in need.
Thank heaven they can afford to escape to another home,
but what about their coastal one? I am
sure they’re insured.
I can barely afford insurance making 11 dollars an hour.
We are approaching the holiday season of giving.
I must give. Otherwise, I am
a selfish mailroom bitch trekking through freezing rain
picking up soccer cleats for my boss’s kid
who cannot afford to miss another practice
and an opportunity to play overseas. I am
paid to do these kinds of things, so I shouldn’t complain. I am
asked to provide some of my mailroom paycheck to a kid like
this, whose lifestyle hunkered down
is seemingly better than my own. Today, I am
evacuating my home 20 minutes near the Florida coast
along with everyone who can afford to
out-run Irma on the Turnpike, one day ahead of her. Now, I am
privileged enough to leave
with a room at a Georgia hotel waiting for me. I am
taking valuables, wondering if Irma will have mercy
on my coastal home–if it is all gone, even with insurance
would I need help from a Midwestern mailroom girl?
Form Can’t Hold Me Pantoum
The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of
God was hovering over the face of the waters. ~ Genesis 1:2, Bible, English Standard Version
I’m trying to fit in form. I’m trying to fit in this world.
This world first existed without form. It was void.
I’m told without the Holy Spirit, my soul is cold.
Why am I trying to fit in? My Spirit existed before form.
This world first existed without form. It was void,
a chasm of nothingness. No existence to fill it.
Why am I trying to fit in? My spirit existed before form.
This world doesn’t honor true origin. Too busy trying to fit in.
The world is a chasm of nothingness with no existence to fill it.
Meanwhile, they tell me what I already know. I don’t belong.
This world doesn’t honor true origin. Too busy throwing fits.
I’m stuck here trying to find the way back home.
The world’s happy to tell me I don’t belong. I already know.
Spending my whole life trying to fit into some type of form.
I’m stuck here trying to find the way back home,
knowing it’s celestial, beyond the stars, past black holes.
Still, I spend my whole life trying to fit into some type of form.
Form can’t hold me. My fleshy vessel contains too much,
knowing its celestial, beyond the stars, past the black holes.
What does the Milky Way weigh? What is the meter of the galaxy?
Form can’t hold me. My fleshy vessel contains too much.
Metrics can suppress a message. To say, braves feats of strength.
What does the Milky Way weigh? What is the meter of galaxy?
Through math, we try to wrap our heads around understanding.
Metrics can suppress a message. To say, braves feats of strength.
Remember, this world first existed without form. It was void.
We use math to filter through our heads, trying to understand.
And still, I try to fit in some form, trying to fit in this world.
Ode to Freddy Mercury
The African boy with the crooked teeth
understood sound
felt sound;
was sound;
knew with other sounds came music.
An auditory artist
Stomp-stomp-clap
In the high school bleachers,
Stomp-stomp-clap
At the basketball games
Stomp-stomp-clap
Stadium football games
Stomp-stomp-clap
From concert arenas
Stomp-stomp-clap
to homeroom desks
Stomp-stomp-clap
and the lunchroom tables.
Stomp-stomp-clap.
He would,
he would rock us.
Has anyone written an ode to Freddy Mercury, yet?
I thought he was Black
when I heard Another One Bites the Dust.
Who gave him the base to speak to my soul?
Zanzibar, Tanzania. African soil.
Hadimu, Tumbatu blood coursing his veins
making him loose on stage
possessing him to
hypnotize us with his slender torso
screaming through a porn-stache
groomed to divert attention from enamel
imperfection filtering his sound,
humility, boldness, and curious inhibitions.
Who else composed a rock opera?
I don’t wanna die, but sometimes
I wish I’d never been born at all
electric seamless guitar
bending word into note.
Freddy Mercury flawed.
Freddy Mercury sound.
Freddy Mercury buried. Grave
unknown.
Those imperfect teeth
are still with us.
Breakfast in Northport
The weathered bell above the white painted-peeling doorway clatters
an unknown tune to the procession of morning feet
shuffling in from the excitement of a fenced-in Ferris wheel.
I face the window.
Residents blushed cheeks turn pink
from the autumn breeze the lake casts off.
Kids wearing nautical attire holding helium balloons
skip by for ice cream and cotton candy.
Main St. closed off for high school marching bands,
the highest form of entertainment the town allows.
Their children featured in the parade,
watering seeds, watching themselves grow
in this secret white pod of privilege.
Black girl, you don’t belong here!
The waitress’ body language smolders.
Refusing to water my empty glass,
passing our table serving incoming patrons.
I pass time studying my menu of options, retorts, rebuttals, and complaints
I’m used to it. I just wait.
She finally waits, impatient
face weathered from a hard life of hate.
No forgiveness,
no eye contact.
What will you have?
A heaping full of respect,
a side of justice and equity…
decaf coffee with cream. And
the satisfaction of blessing a working-class racist
with a generous tip
from a Black woman.
Note: An earlier version of “Breakfast in Northport” was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul, I’m Speaking Now, Black Women Share Their Truth in 101 Stories of Love, Courage, and Hope.
To order copies of Claire Bateman’s books Scape orCoronology from Amazon, click on the book covers below.
Claire Bateman
Claire Bateman’s books include Scape (New Issues Poetry & Prose); Locals (Serving House Books), The Bicycle Slow Race (Wesleyan University Press), Friction (Eighth Mountain Poetry Prize), At The Funeral Of The Ether (Ninety-Six Press, Furman University), Clumsy (New Issues Poetry & Prose), Leap (New Issues), and Coronology (Etruscan Press). She has been awarded Individual Artist Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the Surdna Foundation, as well as two Pushcart Prizes and the New Millennium Writings 40th Anniversary Poetry Prize. She has taught at Clemson University, the Greenville Fine Arts Center, and various workshops and conferences such as Bread Loaf and Mount Holyoke. She lives in Greenville, South Carolina. (Please see Bateman’s amazon.com Author’s Page for links to all her publications, and go here for further information about the poet and her work.) (Author Head Shot Augment: René Laanen.)