An interview with the winning Micro Chapbook author Ja’net Danielo on the inspiration and process behind This Body I Have Tried to Write: “With these poems, I very much wanted to convey that illness, disability, loss, and grief are not physical and emotional circumstances that happen to a body but are ever-evolving processes held within the body.”
Trinh Mai
Cover design by TRINH MAI, a California-based visual artist who examines the refugee and immigrant experience, then and now. Her work pursues healing through storytelling by confronting the fear, injustice, and devastation that has harrowed our communities. Seeking hope within humanity’s consistent struggle in war and hardship, she has engaged survivors of war in creative projects through partnerships with academic and arts institutions, including Friends of Huế Foundation Children's Shelter in Việt Nam, the Angkor Hospital for Children in Cambodia, and the International Rescue Committee. Mai is the recipient of awards from Gonzaga University’s Center for Global Engagement, and has had the privilege of serving as University of Washington Walker-Ames Fellow in 2019, Long Beach Professional Artist Fellow in 2021, and continues speaking about her art practice and engaging communities in creative storytelling, with the desire to help usher us into an enduring hope that will help ground us in a fractured world. Learn more about her work at trinhmai.com.
This Body I Have Tried to Write
by Ja’net Danielo
Who among us hasn’t wanted to kill the sweetest thing?
