Erin Little
Interrogation
—after Rebecca Tamás
How long have you been sick?
How.
Are you in remission?
A souped-up stasis between worlds.
Are you saying you’ve conjured other worlds? The otherworldly?
Careful with that word.
Have you taken part in banned ritual practices, medicinal or otherwise?
Blood.
What about blood?
BLOOD.
???
Bloodbloodbloodbloodbloodbloodblood badblood bloodblood
Ma’am, do you intend to cooperate? Haven’t you caused enough trouble?
Trouble in the blood, trouble in the blood.
Do you always speak this way, in incantations?
Don’t push your meaning on me, don’t you do it.
Is that a threat?
The threat is in the blood.
You will not threaten me and get away with it.
I become a scarlet sash on your throat, rope of blood.
You have an unhealthy obsession with–
Rope of blood, rope of blood, rope of blood, rope, ROPE.
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Statement of Homage
I first encountered Rebecca Tamás’s work in Dr. Laura Glenum’s graduate poetry workshop “Poetry, Magic, Activism” at Louisiana State University in spring 2022. We read her poetry collection WITCH along with similarly brilliant, experimental texts like Christian Hawkey’s Ventrakyl and Kate Durbin’s HOARDERS. WITCH features a recurring dialogue over several pieces entitled “Interrogation” poems. The identities of the speakers aren’t clearly defined. All we know for sure, via typography and line breaks, is that two speakers are engaged in tense back-and-forth. I found this format innovative, inspirational, and uniquely helpful in my effort to channel a child self who has survived a traumatic illness.
Rebecca Tamás
Rebecca Tamás is a British poet, writer, critic, and editor. She is the author of the poetry collection WITCH (Penned in the Margins, 2019) and Strangers: Essays on the Human & Nonhuman (Makina Books, 2020). Tamás co-edited the Ignota Books anthology SPELLS: 21st Century Occult Poetry with Sarah Shin. She is a Lecturer in Creative Writing at York St John University, where she co-convenes the York Centre for Writing Poetry Series. She is based in London.
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Erin Little is a writer and editor originally from Dallas, TX. She is an MFA candidate at LSU, where she has served as editor-in-chief of New Delta Review. Previously, she was an editorial assistant at Penguin Random House. Her poems have appeared in Chestnut Review, HAD, Prelude Magazine, and The Shore. Find her online at eringlittle.com.