Sexting Ghosts

by Joanna C. Valente

Sexting Ghosts is a collection of poems by Joanna C. Valente. 'In Sexting Ghosts, Joanna Valente invites us to join them in their haunted psychiatrist's chair for a cinematic Q&A with the ghosts and gods of the future past. These poems together form an epic flush with oblique strategies for survival. Valente's arguments sear then soften, become inquiries, persistent efforts to either understand or to cut ties with what time has shed. Ghosts and humans alike know the exhausting experience of being a human trapped in a body. Ghosts, too, are jailed in their forms.' - Jasmine Dreame Wagner, author of On a Clear Day and Rings

Genres: Poetry

114 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Joanna C. Valente is a human who lives in Brooklyn, New York, and is the author of Sirs & Madams (Aldrich Press, 2014), The Gods Are Dead (Deadly Chaps Press, 2015), Marys of the Sea (The Operating System, 2017), Xenos (Agape Editions, 2016), and Sexting the Dead (Unknown Press, 2018). They are the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault (CCM, 2017). Joanna received a MFA in writing at Sarah Lawrence College, and is also the founder of Yes, Poetry, a managing editor for Luna Luna Magazine and CCM, as well as an instructor at Brooklyn Poets.

Reviews

[KRISTINE SLENTZ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it cliché to say something is haunting when ghost is in the title? Probably and I do not care. Sexting Ghosts inches its way underneath your comforter during witching hour to blankly stare dead in your face – and you love every moment of turning into an exquisite corpse yourself. If you’re looking to relate more (maybe even fall in love) with the rotten portions of your eternal being, this is the chapbook for you. Best times to read this collection is either while eating ice cream or during a communing-with-the-living ritual.

[Eleanore · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm finding lately that, more often than not, the general style of most contemporary poetry at the moment is just not something that works well for me, often not at all. That said, there are two very solid essays at the back of the book ("Suicidal Ideation and Who We Allow to Be Real" and "The Barbaric Silencing of Transgender and Non-Binary People: It's Not Just Dangerous, It's Inhumane"), which are of genuine quality (though they could use a more solid copy edit). These pieces at the back get the extra star on their own, but that's the only section of this one that really were something I could connect with.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great to see another woman's voice that doesn't conform to the predominating paradigm of male/academic authorship, which has been challenged with quantitative significance over the past decade or so. This being said, the poetics of the millennial are hard to get away with, but SG does a great job of personalizing Joanna's position in the world as mutually exclusive from and yet at the same time inextricably tied to Today's emotions and mores, as related to both Joanna and the world - and isn't paradox one of literature's axioms?

[Emily]

"when I asked if
you believed
in
ghosts
I meant, do you believe in yourself?
Do you believe in your grandmother's kitchen
the smell of zucchini bread
the desire for emptiness,
to purge everything and start over again
like you never existed even though I trace
your outline in the dark."
-A Tale of Two Worlds

Other favorites:

-Mother
-Grandmother
-God of Sounds Talks After a Hiatus
-God of Thunder Divorces God of Lightning
-God of Air
-God of Loneliness

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The poems in Sexting Ghosts by Joanna C. Valente, wonderfully explores the intersections of relationships and technology. I was particularly struck by how the poems deals with the technology/modernity while also dealing with the archetypal/mythical.

[M.A. Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed a handful of poems, but the essays at the end were by far the most impactful and moving parts of this collection for me.

[Matt Feltman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Sealey Challenge Day #26 book!