Woman Peeing in a Barn

by Han VanderHart

Woman Peeing in a Barn
after Emmet Gowin (1971)

is Edith Gowin, the photographer’s wife

is backlit by summer

is holding her white cotton gown up

is hands gathering at hip bones

is legs apart

is head turned sideways

is relaxed, mouth parted

is letting her water flow on the barn floor

is releasing what she can

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Poet Han VanderHart is a queer writer living in Durham, North Carolina. Their manuscript Larks (Ohio University Press, 2025) won the 2024 Hollis Summers Poetry Prize, judged by Chanda Feldman. Han is also the author of the poetry collection What Pecan Light (Bull City Press, 2021). They have poetry and essays published in Kenyon Review, The American Poetry Review, The Rumpus, AGNI, and elsewhere. Han hosts Of Poetry Podcast and co-edits the poetry press River River Books. You can follow them on Instagram @han.vanderhart.

Artist Shelbey Leco is a New Orleanian artist who is a fiction writer, and sewer. Most of her work focuses on mixed media portraiture art. Her art was inspired by her grandmother. When Shelbey was little, she often went through art supplies, which her grandmother could not afford. Instead her grandmother would give her pens, to fill in negative space with patterns from coloring books. As an adult, Shelbey incorporated vibrant color and materials.