SWWIM sustains and celebrates women poets by connecting creatives across generations and by curating a living archive of contemporary poetry, while solidifying Miami as a nexus for the literary arts.
As a reminder to play, contemplated cocktail swords for finger tattoos on each of our hands. Swashed. Considered the bacteria slurped up by my drink off the skin of a pierced lemon, a different part for my hair. I felt tenderly toward the flaw’s expression. After the flaming sugar cube failed to totally dissolve, took it as a reminder of what will remain, the loose hair of loss ever entangling itself. Celebrated alongside my love the discovery of a pea crab inside an oyster’s shell. Became an orchid then explained to a stranger’s child a reason not to shoo away a good-news bee. Watched a storm ruffle the lake surface and rough up un-staked tents someone dodged on his way to join me. When I walked, it was chin-up, a smile latched to my face like a leash. It wasn’t that I felt made obedient but I was trying something on, my whole head a dressing room inside of which many things stood naked.
Kristi Maxwell is the author of nine books of poems, including Wide Ass of Night (Saturnalia Books, 2025); Goners (Green Linden Press, 2023), winner of the Wishing Jewel Prize; My My (Saturnalia, 2020); Realm Sixty-four (Ahsahta Press, 2008), editor’s choice for the Sawtooth Poetry Prize; and Hush Sessions (Saturnalia,2009), editor’s choice for the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. She’s a professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Louisville.
