by Natalie Linh Bolderston
Author’s Note:
This poem uses a form invented by Kristin Chang, called the I-Ching. This is named after a Chinese method of divination. Each stanza takes the shape of an I-Ching hexagram, and can be read left to right starting with the first line, or left to right starting with the last line. The stanza titles and numbers are also the names and numbers of the hexagrams.
Natalie Linh Bolderston studied English at the University of Liverpool, where she won the 2016 Felicia Hemans Prize for Lyrical Poetry and the 2017 Miriam Allott Poetry Prize. Her work has been featured in L’Éphémère Review, Oxford Poetry, Smoke, The Good Journal, The Tangerine, and Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine. In 2018, she received the silver Creative Future Literary Award, was awarded Second Place in the Timothy Corsellis Poetry Prize, and was commended in the Young Poets Network’s prose poetry competition. She is also a runner-up in the 2019 Bi’an Awards. Her poetry pamphlet, The Protection of Ghosts, is forthcoming from V. Press.