When Aimée Lê and Fiona Chamness walked into the Neutral Zone on the night of January 13th, it was apparent the artists had arrived. Lé was wearing fishnet tights, a navy dress, and a baseball hat with a sparkly “S” for the Seattle Sea Hawks. Chamness was simple, sporting a black homecoming-style dress and Adidas sneakers. And though their outfits accurately captured their personalities, it was clear from their first poem that their words could say more about them than their clothes ever could.
The event was a book launch put on by Red Beard Press the Neutral Zone’s independent youth-driven publishing company. Lê and Chamness worked together to put out “Feral Citizens”, a book of poetry. Both graduates of the Ann Arbor Public Schools (namely Pioneer, Community, and Greenhills), Lê and Chamness study creative writing at the collegiate level.
Lê is a junior at Dartmouth College, and has received numerous recognitions for her poetry. She was runner-up at the 2010 Chicago collegiate slam and received Best Poem and Funniest Poem at the Collegiate Poetry Slam in 2009.
Chamness has had poems published in “Decibels: Poems From the First Ten Years of the VOLUME Youth Poetry Project” and in the “Plum Creek Review” at Oberlin College, where she is currently a sophomore. She was, along with Lê, a member of the 2008 Ann Arbor Youth Slam Team that was featured on the HBO miniseries “Brave New Voices”.
Red Beard Press began began work on the book in November, though the poems are nothing new. “These are poems that she and I have written for years. We started putting them together into a manuscript probably last spring, and then the latest day that a poem was written was right up until maybe November,” Lê said.
Living in different states did make collaboration on the book difficult. “Oh my god, it was rough, it was really rough,” said Lê. “Fortunately both of those schools have flexible winter schedules, so she’s off for a month and I’m off for three months in the winter, so it ended up working out really well.”
Lê and Chamness read from “Feral Citizens” both separately and together. They used each other’s talents to their fullest–Lê even pulled out the beat boxing for one of Chamness’s poems. Arguably the most emotional piece of the night, Lê recited her poem “Afternoon & Ambulance” while Chamness accompanied her on the guitar.
“Feral Citizens” is an incredible, raw book of poetry within itself. Lê and Chamness know what the other person lacks and how to make it up, and more importantly, understand the meaning of reading poetry together, almost as if a musical duet. And though it is a treat to have this book added to the bookshelf, the performance from Lê and Chamness was an irreplaceable joy that not even their words could describe.
I’m Glad I Only Had to be a Teenage Boy Once
I’m Glad I Only Had to be a Teenage Boy Once
Afternoon & Ambulance
