Nickole Brown

Jun 3, 2024 | orionmagazine.org | Nickole Brown

GO AHEAD. CALL THEM an invasion. Use that word of war, that word blasted white with the dust of buildings falling, that word that dangles like the arm limp and blood-run you saw on your feed. Yes, use that doom-scrolling, war-torn collective noun for cicadas. But know you’re using it for an insect who does not sting and does not bite, who in fact has no mouth at all to bite, getting by with only a slender siphon from which to sip enough liquid for these very last days of their very long lives.

Jun 11, 2023 | kenyonreview.org | Nickole Brown |Fleda Brown |Jennifer Sperry Steinorth |Bernard Ferguson

Nickole Brown is the author of Sister and Fanny Says. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, where she volunteers at several animal sanctuaries. To Those Who Were Our First Gods, a chapbook of poems about these animals, won the 2018 Rattle Prize, and Brown’s essay-in-poems, The Donkey Elegies, was published by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2020.