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I.S. Jones: Also, this has nothing to do with anything, but this is for Monica Lewinsky: Jay Leno is a bum, he’s a bozo, and he owes Monica Lewinsky apology, and I’m never letting this shit go, I don’t care. I do not care. I Usually women who are subjected to overly powered men die. They get killed. But Monica Lewinsky lived and had a life on the other side. She jokingly has in her bio, “I’m the chick from all of the rap, from all of the rap productions,” and I’m like, that’s so cunt! Oh my God.
DeeSoul Carson: . Hello, poets of the internet! I’m DeeSoul Carson, and this is e·pon·y·mous, an O, Word? podcast series interested in poets, their collections & related title poems, and how they find their ways into our hands. Today’s episode is on Bloodmercy by I.S. Jones.
I.S. Jones is the author of Bloodmercy, chosen by Nicole Sealey as the winner of the 2025 APR/Honickman First Book Prize, and the chapbook Spells of my Name, selected by Newfound in 2021 for their Emerging Writer series (and might I add, an O, Word? 2025 5-star read). Currently, she is a senior editor for Poetry Northwest, where she runs her column, “The Legacy Suite.” Her works have appeared in Granta, LA Review of Books, Guernica, Prairie Schooner, the Rumpus, and elsewhere.
Itiola, hello! How’s it going?
ISJ: It is going great. Post-book life is wonderful ‘cause I sleep a lot. I’ve gotten so much rest, it’s been nice.
DC: Yeah, you were on a world tour last year promoting the book, which is exciting to see. Was there any particular place you were excited to go and read?
ISJ: I love when I got to reading Detroit last year, that was really special. This year, I’m also excited ‘cause the tour is still going, though it’s a bit sparse. For example, in April, I will be in California reading at my alma mater, Cal State University, Northridge, which I’m excited for.
I’ll also be at AWP reading. I’ll be at Haymarket House here in Chicago, reading from the book, and I have a few other things planned too, but it’s been, it’s a beautiful, scary, wonderful, frightening thing when a project you have poured years of your life into comes to fruition, and people can have it forever, and it’s fixed in place. It’s weird. It’s like my life starts again now.
DC: It’s such a stunning debut too. I hope everyone who listens to our voices here goes out and buys the book. ‘Cause when I read it, I was absolutely blown away, and I knew it was gonna be good. I’ve never, ever doubted your pen. But it is really something spectacular when you see a project come together, especially one that you’ve been hearing about so long.
Of course, Bloodmercy is this lyrically rich re-imagining of the relationship not only of Cain and Abel, but also their parents, Adam and Eve, and how they all fit into this kind of early creation story that’s also set very modernly. There’s this time slipperiness that’s really nice in the book.
On this podcast, we like to talk about the title poems, and what’s interesting about this collection is that there is not one singular title poem. Instead, we have two, one in the voice of each sister, and the language of blood and mercy also reoccur over the course of the entire work. So, my first question to you, my friend, is how do you feel that this term. “bloodmercy,” manifests across the collection? And what does it even mean for you, or what does it start to mean?
ISJ: I love this question. The term “bloodmercy,” it’s a term for the immutable bond between sisters, the suffocating nature of familial ties, right? And how we are so willing to sacrifice and sacrifice every part of ourselves to keep these bonds together no matter what it costs us. Because someone is of your blood, you show them mercy. Before I even fully knew the shape of the book or what its urgency was, I already knew the title of the book. I don’t know if it sounds “woowoo” or prophetic or what have you, but like the book told me this is my title and this title is not moving, which, I’m really grateful for that kind of clarity ‘cause nothing else about the book was clear, but I always knew the title. It was always going to be clear.
It was always going to be a way to explain the invisible braid between them, which in the book symbolizes a metaphorical umbilical cord, that no matter how far away they are from each other, because they own a piece of each other, that will always belong to each other. Also amidst this desire to be seen as the most useful in the eyes of God. When I was first writing this book, I knew that I wanted to have an Old Testament feel to it, meaning I wanted God to feel as immediate as possible, at least the way that I read it as a child growing up. So with that, I always knew that I was gonna have to… I was going to write two title poems, one for Cain and one for Abel.
And, Dee, as someone whose pen is also ridiculously good, you know how hard it is to write title poems. It’s easy to fall into the anxiety of feeling like if this title poem is not good enough, then the book is a wash. But I figured I’ve already done the most challenging and rigorous thing. I mean this for a debut is wild.
DC: Yeah. It’s not very often we get a debut that is so invested in persona, and not so much to mean that you’re putting on a voice, but there is like a narrative and you’re really speaking in the voices, like there’s two… there’s characters in this book, these characters have their own full world. There’s a lot of trust in the reader’s ability to take that journey with you through the psyches of these characters, and I just thought it’s ambitious, but it really works. You write in a way that I think invites that kind of freedom.
ISJ: I appreciate that. Yeah I love that association with my work, being attached to freedom. Especially because that’s what I was trying to get to in writing this book. ‘Cause I’ll be frank, there was a time where in the production of this book, I almost scrapped the project ‘cause it did not feel urgent to what the current sociopolitical time was calling for. But then I just remembered like, I wanna write, what did Toni Morrison say? If there is a book in the world that is not written, you were obligated to go out and write it.
And that feels apt because Sula by Tony Morrison was one of my book’s first progenitors before I understood what the book could do. I knew that it was really important for me to create a world where girls are at the center, which is a lot, very similar to what Sula does. Young girls whose lived experiences are often discredited being the center of a compelling and biblical story. It felt scary. It felt risky, it felt dangerous. It felt like freedom.
DC: I was really struck by the reimagining, and I’ve been leading this course where we’re talking about how to read different poetry collections, and your book is one of the ones that I was using in the class. And by the way, my students got a real kick out of reading the different poems, because part of the class we were talking about how do you go from one section to the other? And with Cain’s section, and then we start with that first poem by Abel ,and my students had a lot to say about Abel.
ISJ: Ooh, spill.
DC: Dear listeners, when you read the book, you’ll understand. But there’s this really interesting subversion of what we know, of the story of Cain and Abel. ‘Cause I think in the story of Cain and Abel, something that remains is this idea of jealousy and this idea of Cain being jealous of Abel.
In the story that we know from the Bible, there’s an assumed innocence of Abel. And so what makes Abel’s voice so delicious in this collection is that Abel is really a little bit more pompous than the story would suggest. And it just creates such a more rich and dynamic character. But, basically, we were talking about how the first poem of the book starts with Cain talking about Abel. There’s this kind of… obsessive is the wrong word, but she’s really concerned with her sister. And then Abel’s first utterance is talking about the power that she’s been given, which I think is a really different take on that.
DC: I’d love to dig into the title poems a little bit more. So the first eponymous poem comes from Cain, and there’s this really interesting intimacy and, almost devotion, that tinges this confession, as I call it, there’s this bit of a kind of a spilling that happens here from Cain. And I was just wondering if you could just talk more about what’s happening in this first title poem.
ISJ: Yeah. What I wanted to do was make it clear that Cain is clearly obsessed. with Abel, because she has been conditioned to see Abel not only a part of her, but like her property, quite literally. Like in one of the first poems, she says
…you are mine Mine. Mine to hold & hold beneath me
from “Sister’s Keeper”, pg 10
When I first started writing this book, two albums that helped me learn how to order the book were Tetsuo & Youth by Lupe Fiasco and… the name of the band Moonchild; the name of the album that inspired me is called Voyager. In Tetsuo & Youth, the album is governed by the four seasons, right? We begin with summer, spring, we go into fall, winter, and then we go back to spring, right? And that ordering was really pivotal to how I ordered this manuscript, especially in the first two sections.
So the dying light of summer, I think, is something that was really important to this poem as we make this transition into the colder summers — colder winter, rather. There’s a kind of mourning that’s happening, right, as the season is fading out. Cain is also lamenting about how they are starting to grow up and it is clear they’re beginning to grow apart, especially when we get to the line:
My life made sense when we were of one mind & two bodies. Now you keep secrets from me. Your diary says as much. The seasons turn and we stop knowing each other.from “Bloodmercy,” pg 20
As the seasons begin to end, there is a clear sunset happening on the dynamic of the once had where the little sister was always going up to the big sister needing things. Now it’s clear that as Abel’s getting older, she doesn’t need Cain anymore. And it’s a clear anguish, right? I used to be the one to clean up your wounds. Now you’re too much of a big girl to come to me. And in terms of the three voices — Abel, Eve, and Cain — it was a loose structure, but it was really important for each of them to represent the three poetry modes.
Eve is dramatic. Cain is lyrical. Abel is narrative. Obviously throughout the book, I don’t expressly keep that, but in the title poems, it was really important for me to emphasize that, which is why the last half of Cain’s poem is so lyrical:
…My blood meeting yours to become “cainabel.” My name eating yours has to become “cannibal.” Mercy at your still body becomes “claimable.” Call it “grace” or “pity,” you my ancestor, my wife…Ibid
Right? And then Abel’s poem. Her title poem at the end is a bit more narrative, though I do think it has some lyricism in it though. Yeah. Also, I just wanted to rap. I really wanted a poem where I just got to rap a little bit and be like, “Oh, what more can I do? How much farther can I stretch and make language fun and playful?” Because that’s something that I really wanted to do with Cain’s voice. I think Cain is very playful.
I don’t think Abel becomes very playful until maybe towards the end of her section. And to me, because Abel is also wrestling with the fact that she’s gay and that as her section progresses, she starts to slowly build and find the language to eventually come out, I wanted her progression towards maybe a more relaxed narrative to come as she makes peace with who she is against the world that will not accept her.
DC: Cain is such an interesting case because she’s so many firsts, right? She’s the first ever daughter, she’s the first ever girl, like Eve didn’t start off as a girl, she came out full-woman. And so she’s the first one to go through girlhood and the violence of girlhood. She’s the first older sister, first eldest daughter. There’s so much that I think she’s building with, which I think also goes into that kind of like the whole world of language is hers.
DC: I love everything that you’re saying about Cain’s poem. And on the other hand of Cain’s devotion and ostensible jealousy, especially what we get in that title poem. In Abel’s view, we have this sort of cleaving herself almost from her sister, so in this collection, my read is that she’s actually a lot more proud than her story makes her out to be. And she actually feels a bit of pity for Cain? I would love it if you can speak a little bit more on your process of really differentiating and developing these two sisters throughout the collection.
ISJ: Yeah. Cain and Abel obviously are also fictitious layers for my fraught relationship with my own sister. It was also really important for me to call out my younger, arrogant self as well, which is what I do with both of those girls, both Cain and Abel. I think a lot about good kid, m.A.A.d city, but specifically the song … the line where he goes:
I pray my dick get big as the Eiffel Tower So I can fuck the world for seventy hours Goddamn, I feel amazin’.from “Backseat Freestyle” by Kendrick Lamar, on good kid, m.A.A.d city
I think a lot about that song and how Kendrick was poking fun at his younger self. And I was like, “that’s so, like, this man’s mind. That’s so good.” So, I wanted to adopt that, making them both feel more familial in that way when cultivating their personalities. And then also just injecting some of the anxieties I had in my own girlhood, right? Like, with Abel, she is coming to terms with her sexuality, knowing that her mother won’t accept her, right? And then she has these very beautiful romantic experiences. I couldn’t put all of them in this book, even though I’m very sad about it. But there was a version of this book I had in which Abel had multiple girlfriends.
But she wouldn’t have said it that way. She would’ve gone up to a girl that she liked and put a ribbon in her hair and then they would’ve been girlfriends. That’s the kind of thing, you know what I mean? Like in a very sort of cute, childish kind of way. Like she had already been used to kissing girls and telling girls that she likes them. So it wasn’t it… she had already created this sort of world full of girls. Then later in the book, when you read, you see how Abel says, “oh, my mom says I hang around girls too much.” Me making the illusion though, I make it clear throughout the book that Abel is very gay. I’m like, “oh, that’s why she’s so damn depressed. Okay. That makes a lot of sense.”
DC: She’s figuring things out. She’s figuring things out.
ISJ: And then with Cain there is… I was a very intense tomboy growing up. Set It Off was very influential to my development as a child, Dee, you have to understand. Queen Latifah did something for me, but I was a very aggressive tomboy as a kid, I wrestled with boys. And so I wanted to pay homage to that in Cane, right? Because she developed very young and very early. And while I was a late bloomer, I really wanted to pay homage to a lot of my homegirls growing up and friends that I’ve had who developed very young, who developed sexually very young, and had to reckon with the world now wanting to put their jaw around them, right?
While it is true that, like Abel represents my sister, Cain is me, of course, and then my mother obviously is Eve, what all three of these archetypes represent are the ways in which I moved through and made peace with those parts of me as a child, right?
Like, for example, in “Psalm for the Fast Girls,” Cain makes it very clear that [she’s] actually the danger. You actually be scared of [her]. And in “Twice as Many Stars as Usual,” and then also in “First Sighting.” In “First Sighting,” Abel falls in love. She has her first romantic experience, right? And then, “Twice as Many Stars as Usual,” Abel comes to understand what it means to love something with such devotion that it is almost like being a mother. A lot of things that young girls come into as they age, it was really important for me to pause and make space for these milestones of girlhood.
DC: Baba, in this book, obviously that being the word for “father” — in my reading of it, there’s this nice slipperiness of it. And sometimes, because it’s Cain and Abel, the assumption is that they can be talking about their father, Adam, but also the idea that Baba could also be talking about God, as those of us who are of faith, or have been of faith, referring to God as our father. And thinking about the conflations that could even happen there when we think about, sometimes, the violence of the father. And I would love to hear more about your process of how you’re writing… I’m gonna say “Baba” as the character, and you can clarify if it’s Adam or God or both. But how was writing them in this collection, especially with it being so centered around the women of this story and this dynamic?
ISJ: Thank you for this question. Yeah, I appreciate what you said about the slipperiness, it is deliberate throughout the book. It was really important for me to make that slipperiness clear, because as a child whenever I thought about celestial rankings —I’m saying this as an adult— in my headcanon as a child, my father was second in command to God, right? If I follow the word of the Lord, I follow the word of my father, right? So, it was really important for me to incorporate that sort of child logic into the book by making it… not clear sometimes, whether it was Baba-God-in-Heaven or Baba-Here-on-Earth. So that was one.
Two, when I was trying to figure out the urgency of both Adam and God, it was really important for me to not give either of them poems, because much like an overpowered perfume, they already permeate through so much of the book, it would almost nerf their power if I gave them a poem, right? Much of what makes God so evocative is the fact that he never speaks, He is the center of the crisis everywhere throughout the book. Even with Eve, so much of her anguish and her rage and a lot of the things she feels is towards her unresolved feelings towards God, right?
On the one hand, she is not sorry at all, and she’s unrepentant as hell for eating the fruit. Because it was the first time in her entire creation that she got to make a choice for herself. God, in a lot of ways, ended up being a filter for all of the desires and the urgency of all of the voices throughout the book. In the case of Adam, Adam obviously represents my own blood father. And when I was trying to think about how to adequately talk about it, I think fear, obviously, was the first thing that comes up. Especially ‘cause I grew up in a house that — I can be honest — I grew up in a very particularly violent house. There was a lot of yelling and screaming and physical fighting and threats. And it was important for me to tackle this concept of being God-fearing, right? How can I say that I love you, God, if a part of me also fears you, right?
I really wanted to try and write a poem titled “God-fearing.” I couldn’t do it. The original title of “Epithalamion in the Field” was “God-fearing,” because I really wanted to write a poem to confront Lord, how can I love you if I’m also meant to fear you? I still haven’t answered that question, Dee, but luckily for me, I got a long life and I got time. “Epithalamion in the Field” was a failed attempt to get there, but this poem at its core is meant to talk about that, that unbridled devotion, right? Lord, I will be so devoted to you all my days. I will be your bride, I will be your wife. I will protect your good name. I will be your everything and anything.
This book, at its core, is me confronting my enduring questions to God. It was really important to have my child self echo the way that I felt when I was a child, this poem captures exactly how I felt like for God, I would have done anything, been anything, follow him anywhere. And it was important for me to put that there.
God is such a powerful and evocative figure in the story, even though Eve is the one whose actions set off everything that happens in the book, right? There is no tension in this book without God. And this book also gave me safe passage to question God’s intentions, to make language around like, “Lord, if I’ve done everything you said, why is it that I’m still suffering? Why does suffering exist on the earth? Why, what do I have to do to be perfect to you?” There’s a poem in the third section, the poem ends with:
Baba, You have given me this dominion to master. You want perfection, yet You want the labor done by human hands. How do I win if there’s no pleasing You?from “Husbandchild: Etymology of Cain”, pg. 49
So, in a lot of ways, God also just represents this impossible and impractical human desire for perfection. That if I can please God, it will absolve all of my mistakes. If I please God, it will make my life happier, if I please God, all of these things, right? But then it also goes back to the one of the Epigraphs, right?
It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy.Romans 9:16, NIV, from epigraphs on pg. 6
I think about that all the time because, especially when it comes to Cain and Abel’s offerings, as traditionally in the Bible, Cain’s offering was rejected — and there’s a whole extended allegory about how the shepherd and the farmer were meant to be allegory for the time, for the conflict between them — but also to show that if God just decides that what you have to offer is not good enough, then it is just not good enough. And I think about that all the time. Like we could do everything right and still lose anyways.
DC: There’s this idea of falling short of some arbitrary and mysterious. Rubric, right? I think as a people of faith, one of the most important things we can do is be able to question the faith. Why we believe, how we believe? And there’s a really interesting thought there about … if I’m doing everything that I can and I’m still falling short, what is really expected of me?
I think something that I struggled with a lot as a child was the idea that God was perfect just because he’s God. And I struggled with that because I’m like, as a child, I’m like what makes God perfect? And it’s like, “Well, He’s God”; I’m like, God decides what perfection is, so whatever he decides, that’s perfect. And that feels unfair.
ISJ: Know what I mean?
DC: Like, I have nothing to do with that. What do you want me… so if the person with all the power decides that they’re good because they are, like, okay!
ISJ: What do I do with that?
DC: Yeah! And how am I expected to measure up to that? I don’t have that power, I can’t decide my own perfection?
ISJ: Like you literally can’t. One question as a child that I always found myself just completely puzzled by is that: if God created all creation, then who created God? Or did he just pull himself outta the primordial soup and then he just was?
DC: Yeah, like what comes before before?
ISJ: Yeah. Because the only thing that existed before God was the literal darkness. ‘Cause in Genesis 1:2, “and God floated over the darkness and the water.” So, the only two things that existed before God [were] darkness and literal water. Which makes sense, because… the idea of water always being makes sense to me. The idea of God always being does not.
DC: I’m glad you brought up Eve, who I also thought about a lot in this collection, ‘cause she shows up as [a] definitely rebellious figure as you’ve pointed out. She occupies another really specific kind of space in this story, right? Just as we talked about her never being the first girl, but she was the first woman.She’s the first wife. Depending on who you ask about the Bible story, she’s the first wife. And so she makes these appearances throughout both of her daughter’s sections.
I love what you already said about her, but I was just thinking so much about her presence in this book, and what you refer to as the “mother wound.”
There’s so much of her presence that is tinged by the fact that so much of her daughters’ energies are directed first at each other and then at the, or moderated by, the fear or respect for their father. Where does that leave Eve? Especially as a woman in this collection who’s also tired of her husband? I would love to hear more about what you’re thinking about there with her presence in the collection.
ISJ: Yeah. So, throughout the writing of this book, I had several teachers and peers who — and even my thesis advisor — who were adamant on me cutting you out of the book. And I said, no.
DC: I’m glad you didn’t.
ISJ: I’m glad too, because she was really important. Like, I just, I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and she was also very important to the catalyst of tension in the book. While it is true that Cain and Abel are the ones at odds, they can’t be at odds without Eve. She is the crux of conflict between them two, and that’s really important.
When I was trying to figure out my relation to Eve and why is it that I couldn’t stop thinking about her, I realized it’s for two reasons. One, obviously, she’s supposed to represent my mother, right? And, by virtue, a mother wound I didn’t know I had, right? But two, Eve was a great opportunity for me to explore my adult self and the enduring questions I have, the obligations of womanhood, getting older, my body being used as a tool to… like, forward movement in a family means having babies. And, in that vein, me trying to make peace around my relationship to my body.
And then also, obviously, her relationship to her husband. One of the first lines I ever wrote for Eve is “this strange creature called husband.” Because, the thing about Eve never made sense is that she was given dominion over the entire Garden of Eden. That was, like, before she had children, the Garden of Eden was her baby. All of the animals that walked the earth were her children. And — this is why Milton and I will forever have static, because you would have me believe that God put her and trusted her with all of these animals and keeping everything alive and watering the plants and all that, but then she was dumb enough to eat the fruit because she was seduced by a snake? What? That don’t make no sense. That doesn’t make any sense, what are you talking about?
So I always believed that Eve made the choice, right? There was a moment where she realized that this heaven on earth that she is in is more of an elegant cage than a form of heaven, right? Because she doesn’t really have a say. She does not… she knows of Lilith, in terms of how the body keeps score. The way that Eve knows about Lilith, it’s almost like the way a woman’s body knows when her husband has cheated on her. “I can’t prove it, but I know you’ve been doing something funny shit behind my back.” ‘Cause in my head she doesn’t, she was never told about Lilith, but she knows about Lilith because that is her sister. Especially in one of the first poems in the book:
When I catch my reflection in the [river,] I see your face… When the wind lifts my dress, just so, I know it is your breath.from “Eve Unto Lilith”, pg 65
I wanted to create a mirroring between Eve & Lilith and Cain & Abel, and so that was really important to me. The book would’ve been longer, and I would’ve written one poem in Lilith’s voice, and then I wanted to make a parallel between Eve and Li and Monica Lewinsky and have all three of them sit at a round table. There was a moment in the book where I really wanted to talk about Monica Lewinsky, in the last half of it, but I just didn’t have the space. But the reason why is because, the running thread of all three of these women is that they have all been punished by overly powered men, right?
Lilith was blamed for not wanting to lay beneath her husband, which, depending on biblical scripture or scholars, is often translated as to, “Oh, my wife wouldn’t give me sex. God —” because, so here’s how it happened in my headcanon, right? Adam went to Lilith and said, “Alright, woman, I want some sex.” And then Lilith was like, “No? I don’t wanna have sex with you. Get away from me. Your balls smell.” And then, Adam was pissed and then he went to God and said, “God, she won’t do, as I say, get rid of her.” And then God was like, “Word.” And then he got rid of her. And then Lilith is the first woman to ever be subjected to gaslighting and having a man lie on her because her name, her literal name means “Night Banshee.”
I find Lily’s character so fascinating because I don’t know a single woman who doesn’t know what Lilith’s story feels like. To tell a man no, and then he makes a point to destroy you for it. And then for Eve’s part, I think she understood that [she has] two options, right: I could fall the way my sister did, or I can find a way to get outta here, right? And now when I think of Eve as an adult woman, she feels a lot of regret for her choices, much so the way that my own mother does. That…there are parts of her I will never know, because — throughout the book, Eve does not talk to her daughters as much about the life she had before. She’s living post-garden.
Cain and Abel in the book know about the Garden of Eden, but it’s more like family myths and stories told over a campfire. They have no idea what it’s actually like because Eve does not talk about that part of her life, much the way that my mother doesn’t talk about her life before immigrating to this country. Which is why in the book I make the parallels between Nigeria and the Garden of Eden, the sort of mythical place that we can no longer return back to, so to speak. And in that way, it was really important for me to give Eve and Lilith and, in the future, Monica Lewinsky their flowers, right?
These archetypal women who survived, who are often used as cautionary tales. Same thing with Lot’s wife too. Lot’s wife has mentioned in the book as well, and I’m so fascinated by these women in the Bible who are so powerful and so urgent and important to the core progression of the story, but are often treated like, like they’re often treated if-not-for-women, mankind-could-be-at-peace kind of nonsense, and not seen for what it is.
DC: A catalyst for some type of doom when very often they’re just, they’re really like the bystanders or the victims of some other man’s bullshit.
ISJ: You feel me? I think a lot about this picture of Monica Lewinsky, a young twenty-something, and she’s standing with Bill Clinton in the Oval Office, and he already has a full head of gray hair by then. And I think to myself, if you’re a twenty-something year old and a powerful man that you’re attracted to gives you the option to suck dick in the White House Oval Office, I wanna know: who among us would say no? Let’s stop pretending like Monica Lewinsky is some sort of sexual deviant. She did what anyone in her position would do. And I stand by that.
DC: Shoot put me in the White House with the — I mean, not the current White House — but put me in the White House, in a room with a million dollars… whatever, anyway.
ISJ: You know what I mean? Anyway. Yeah. That’s why I just, when I keep thinking about Monica Lewinsky, I keep thinking about her and Eve and Lil all in the same house, right? I think if Eve was in the same position as Monica Lewinsky, she’d have done the same thing, shit.
DC: Yeah.
ISJ: Yeah.
DC: On that note— Itiola, it’s been such a wonderful conversation, and I was so glad to hear more about your stunning collection. Once again, I think this is one of my favorite debuts that I’ve read, and it really shows how much care you put into — you can see how tabbed and researched stuff I went on this collection, I really, I had so — there’s so much delicious language in here. And so I would love, I would love if you could close this out with one of your title poems.
ISJ: Yes, please. Yeah. I will read the last poem, which is one of the title poems. I really wanna encourage folks that if you’re embarking on the debut of your book, even if the title poem does not make it into the book, I think it’s worthwhile to just challenge yourself to do it anyway. Because it just, it feels crazy and scary, but also like when you pull it off, you pull it off, you feel me?
Bloodmercy (Abel’s Version)
Now that one sister is seven years returned, so too is the other.
Into Cain's eyes, the oleanders suddenly loosen their sutanas &
sweep heady perfume about our ankles.
A mirroring of faces creased into separate womanhoods.
I once thought it reflexive— how I reached for you
like another limb fixed into place.
Our gestures circling the other— your long fingers,
my scalp racked clean of worry;
my upturned wrist; your lips press
to the skin; I trip & you twist your ankle;
loneliness clouds your mind; the pain invades my dreams;
I bite the blood orange; the juice colors your mouth.
Speak your name into Baba's ear & you stand before me.
As promised in youth, memory returns us to dig
for that cedar box buried in the woods. It's true, sister:
time elongates its reach
& soon your childhood fits into a palm.
The future bisecting the past. On this lone hill where heaven stops
just short of our shoulders. You were more than my sister:
you, my child,
guardian, ancestor, my husband & wife: I do
carry you with me all my days & even when the maggots
will make tender work of our flesh.
I close my eyes to see you with my heart; I close my heart
to see you with The Spirit.
What we knew to be ‘love’ was more habit than conviction.
To live, I remove the yoke bearing 'sister'
& leave you here. Nostalgia & origin are two points
that come to meet again,
the singular braid forever binding our fates
fox to hare; myth to song; mercy to sister.from Bloodmercy by I.S. Jones, published by Copper Canyon Press. Copyright © 2025 by I.S. Jones. Used with permission of the author.
Thank you all for listening to this episode of e·pon·y·mous, a series of the O, Word? podcast produced by me, DeeSoul Carson. The music for e·pon·y·mous and O, Word? is provided by Esoteric Creations. Check them out on Spotify.
Until next time — thanks for reading :)
