Poetry: “Dress Up Game” by Zoe Korte
Zoe Korte pulls no punches. The first lines of their poem “Dress Up Game,” cover all the bases, from human sacrifice all the way to devout religious practice. There’s an element to the way they create pairings, both in terms of subject but also in language, that names them a true powerhouse poet. If we consider further into the poem, we find elements such as descriptions which feel unexpected but exciting, such as the torso as a “a slab of raw meat,” and we also find combinations of words like “smoking beehive,” or “cuneiform scars.” Korte is endlessly inventive and they are also tongue-in-cheek. Even the answers to this poem, arranged like the kind of quiz you would find in the back of a tabloid, feel abstract and yet somehow specific. This is Korte’s most significant weapon—for all the ways they combine words in new ways, their work remains entirely accessible when it wants to e be, and we as readers continue to connect with it.
Dress Up Game
1. You are getting dolled up for the…
A. bitch bazaar
B. mercy killing
C. Latin Mass
2. Your torso is a(n)…
A. obsidian rind
B. smoking beehive
C. slab of raw meat
3. You are pondering…
A. whether you were adopted
B. a memory of shelling peas
C. Eve’s belly button
4. You brocade your wrists with…
A. cuneiform scars
B. acorn bangles
C. speckled feathers
5. Choose a name for your new look!
A. Retrospectacular
B. The Beforemath
C. Zoroastral Projection
If you chose mostly A…
Green starlight of summer. The smell of ozone. The clicks of a splintering tree. These
things are upon us. Unmuffle your zeal. Reluctance is no match for shrapnel.
If you chose mostly B…
You are a doe limping along the interstate. Shedding velvet, molting horn. No one has
ever named you. By the time you adjust to sentience, it will be time to go.
If you chose mostly C…
You can do everything wrong and still spontaneously generate like the first mitochondria
squirming into existence out of the toxic primordial bloom. Do it the hard way.
Zoe Korte
Zoe Korte is a queer and disabled poet whose work has appeared or is forthcoming in Maudlin House, Quarter(ly), and The New Territory. They also serve as the social media manager for Sundress Publications. They live in Missouri with their partner and two tortoiseshell cats.
