Carnival of Aces Roundup, October 2018: Asexuality and Poetry

Hey all!

Tonight’s been a bit of a night–it’s 1am, and I just emailed my academic advisor to tell him I’d changed my list of grad schools to apply to almost entirely, and I spent this morning/afternoon at a poetry conference, and then seeing Bohemian Rhapsody with my family–I haven’t been home, really, since August, so it’s kind of wild–

Most importantly, though, I’m doing the roundup for October’s Carnival of Aces! The theme that I offered was asexuality and poetry, as both of those words and all their connotations are immensely close to my heart (and the post on that can be found here!).

To summarize–

Ace wrote about the experience of writing poetry as an asexual person, and also wrote a poem!
@aroaceyellspace wrote a poem about their journey to accepting their aromantic/asexual identity.
@demiandproud wrote an ace anthem~
Sennkestra wrote a collection of asexual- and aromantic-related limericks!
And, finally, @luvtheheaven wrote a wonderful piece called “Learning to See Experiences Related to Asexuality as Potentially ‘Poetic.'”

Additionally, I’ll enclose here one of the poems I’ve been working on recently, as it fits the theme:

Ten-thirty

I die in the library, drawing scared fingers over skins of books—
the place seeming all sex—
and horribly breathless I—
I think there is no meaning, and yet so many novels—
why so many novels?
I—
I sigh dragging
thumb cross Joyce,
Virgina Woolf,
and, knees shivering,
I am putting my palm to my heart and can
feel the thing dancing,
a dancing drum.
And I think I could never love a man,
no never more than a book;
they are too damned everything,
and falling out into the night,
I near cry

Thank you so much to everyone who participated this month! Next month’s theme, when it’s posted, will show up on the Carnival of Aces masterpost page–which can be found here!

-C.