What You Must Know First About Me
I am first and foremost a girls’ girl and a poets’ poet.
A daughter to all mothers, including fathers.
A father to all friends, including mothers.
I do not believe in narrative events or receding horizons.
I believe in circles. The seven nights. The sacred veils.
The imperative to dress or address a wound.
I believe in the technology of whistling each other home
in the dark. And once I was a girl in the wilds of Chicago!
I climbed down into the belly of the bridge
as it parted its legs over the flowing river,
touched the swollen moon, and the ships went by—
this was its own form of joyride.
And I walked the Calumet Industrial District,
and pulled up the trains by their hairs.
Malvika Jolly was the winner of the 2025 Alice James Award. Her poems are featured in Columbia Journal, Four Way Review, Poet Lore, West Branch, and elsewhere, and performed on stages including The Guggenheim, Joe’s Pub, Queens College, and South Street Seaport Museum. She is the recipient of fellowships from Bread Loaf, Community of Writers, and The Watering Hole, and received her M.F.A. from New York University. She serves as web editor for Washington Square Review and runs the poetry reading series The New Third World.