That Ass!

Abstract

That Ass! Stephanie Jean (bio) i ceci n'est pas une pipe. ii who's in the jungleinterpellating excess as primitive? iii i wrote this poem about serena williams's ass. it wasn't me.not all me. mostly, it was a curtsey to a rage that was not mine.nothing to do with them boys who are her and me. iv serena fights for herself. to be.her ass, her braids, her muscles, her power, her class, either of which isalso black, her sister, her will, her growl, her love of tennis, her badass,her body as mother, her age, her grace, her spine. i too am fighting. to is.a slant in a commercial rune, a seraph to orgasm on cue, a historic-ity in a history of nègres aimés, an unseen except up far, a contre diction, a toward the self, a heart that strains to love grand, a sense sofamished it creates form. [End Page 94] Click for larger view View full resolution June 27, 2006. Ronaldo de Assis Moreira ("Ronaldinho") and John Paintsil in action during the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany Brazil v Ghana at Signal Iduna Park. Photo courtesy of Shutterstock. [End Page 95] Stephanie Jean STEPHANIE JEAN is the winner of the BOMB Poetry Contest 2020, judged by Simone White. Her poem, "Colors," was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by Gulf Coast. She has been awarded fellowships by the Tupelo Press Poetry Manuscript Conference, Chautauqua Writers' Festival, Rutgers' Poets and Scholars Summer Writing Retreat, Cave Canem, and NYFA's Immigrant Artist Mentoring Program. Her poems have appeared in the Journal of Poetics Research, [PANK], Hobart, The Southampton Review, FailBetter, Strange Horizons, ANMLY, and more. Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins University Press