The Play

By Michelle Bitting

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My daughter was three and refused
to wear clothes. Naked on the living
room floor, she’d demand another round
of her favorite game, Pretty Pretty Princess,
then move the plastic rainbow markers
about the board—however, wherever
she pleased. Hair and legs wild, carefree,
splayed. She hated to lose and broke what
rules she had to while we laughed, astonished
at such nerve. Years later, she became a he,
and did what he had to, moving the markers
around wherever, however he needed,
winning the crown, himself, in the end.
Some rules are prettier, broken. 

Michelle Bitting was short-listed for the 2023 CRAFT Character Sketch Challenge, the 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize, and a finalist for the 2021 Coniston Prize and 2020 Reed Magazine Edwin Markham Prize. She is the author of five poetry collections, including Broken Kingdom (2018 Catamaran Poetry Prize) and Nightmares & Miracles (2022 Two Sylvias Press, Wilder Prize). Dummy Ventriloquist is forthcoming in 2024. Bitting is a Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing and Literature at LMU.

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• See you at AWP!

  

• 2/7 / Meet the Artist with visiting poet-in-residence Farnaz Fatemi / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 6:00 pm EST / Free

• 2/7 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Farnaz Fatemi + local writer Fabienne Josaphat / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free

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