Monarch Queer Literary Awards

Scrabble Poems

by Erin Dorney
DIAGRAM

A Scrabble board with some white squares and some black squares. Some white square have letters. Text reads, when, will, first, the, forgot, I, thing, I, remember.
A Scrabble board with some white squares and some black squares. Some white square have letters. Text reads, nest as receptacle, lure, riot, bite, a salted wound as knife jam, volume, hunger for another way.
A Scrabble board with some white squares and some black squares. Some white square have letters. Text reads, what if we can never let us go, I don't think about it.
A Scrabble board with some white squares and some black squares. Some white square have letters. Text reads, I can't fit inside the picture of me you'll never stop seeing.
A Scrabble board with some white squares and some black squares. Some white square have letters. Text reads, braid your hair into mine.

“Scrabble Poems” by Erin Dorney was originally created by hand on a Scrabble board using a standard bag of 100 tiles. All 100 tiles are used, either turned up (letter side) or down (black). To scrabble means to use your fingers to quickly find something you cannot see. The poems in this growing collection present a queering of both form and content: the use of a household game (with over 150 million units sold worldwide) to explore bisexuality (the most common LGBTQ identity according to recent studies, and how the author identifies).

Erin Dorney is a conceptual poet and artist based in Western New York. She is the author of Yes I Am Human I Know You Were Wondering (Autofocus) and other books and zines. www.erindorney.com.

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