Suzanne Lummis
Suzanne Lummis' fourth collection, Crime Wave, will be published by Giant Claw, imprint of What Books, Fall 2025. She’s the editor of the new anthology Poetry Goes to the Movies and poetry editor of the new literary journal out of Los Angeles, Headwind, debuting later this fall. She received her MA from CSU Fresno during its golden era (yes, even Fresno had one) and studied with Philip Levine, one of the most influential poetry teachers of that era. She’s sometimes referred to as a Fresno Poet, more often a Los Angeles Poet, and, because she was born and raised on the northern end, occasionally a California Poet. She’s commonly referred to as a Noir poet. On the strength of other explorations, she appears in anthologies of poems of the American West.
Suzanne Lummis' fourth collection, Crime Wave, will be published by Giant Claw, imprint of What Books, Fall 2025. She’s the editor of the new anthology Poetry Goes to the Movies and poetry editor of the new literary journal out of Los Angeles, Headwind, debuting later this fall. She received her MA from CSU Fresno during its golden era (yes, even Fresno had one) and studied with Philip Levine, one of the most influential poetry teachers of that era. She’s sometimes referred to as a Fresno Poet, more often a Los Angeles Poet, and, because she was born and raised on the northern end, occasionally a California Poet. She’s commonly referred to as a Noir poet. On the strength of other explorations, she appears in anthologies of poems of the American West.
The Horrible Hand
wakes up in a bad mood, hung over, strung out, just
horrible. You’ve heard of hard cases who crawl
out of bed? That’s what The Hand does,
then positions its splayed, wrecked sense
of itself before its deepest possession, a hand
mirror. (The rest of the estate: leather glove,
gold ring, three pens, a yo-yo, a cheap gun.)
Again, the glass reflects a lone, fingered thing
cut off from the body, estranged from its brother. Now,
off to work it will go, but unlike the small cheery
Seven who shouldered their tools, The Hand makes
no song in its low progress over the floor—just
the scribbling of unbit nails, whisper
of knuckle and flesh. In some other world, Winner
strokes the thigh of a stranger and is not slapped away,
Elegant cradles a glass of blown crystal twinkling
with Dom Perrignon, but Horrible must earn its week’s
rent climbing the torsos of B-movie actors, straining
towards the throat – forever to navigate the Has-Been
or Never-Been, or the Never-To-Be. The director’s
“Cut!” startles The Hand. (Once, in its kitchen, stirred
by the glow of 40 watts, it remembered, almost
remembered—a flavor. With no mouth to feed it began
chopping a poor man’s one pot meal.) Released
from the set it goes home on public transportation,
clinging all the way to the overhead railing, orphan
on the row of bodied hands. At night it climbs toward
sleep, just beyond reach. It cannot think yet it grasps
the wrongness of everything. Poor Horrible Hand!
It can’t even shoot itself in the head. Now it curls
on the windowsill, in love with the full moon.
She Thing. Face Belonging to No Body.
(From Crime Wave—Giant Claw, 2025)
wakes up in a bad mood, hung over, strung out, just
horrible. You’ve heard of hard cases who crawl
out of bed? That’s what The Hand does,
then positions its splayed, wrecked sense
of itself before its deepest possession, a hand
mirror. (The rest of the estate: leather glove,
gold ring, three pens, a yo-yo, a cheap gun.)
Again, the glass reflects a lone, fingered thing
cut off from the body, estranged from its brother. Now,
off to work it will go, but unlike the small cheery
Seven who shouldered their tools, The Hand makes
no song in its low progress over the floor—just
the scribbling of unbit nails, whisper
of knuckle and flesh. In some other world, Winner
strokes the thigh of a stranger and is not slapped away,
Elegant cradles a glass of blown crystal twinkling
with Dom Perrignon, but Horrible must earn its week’s
rent climbing the torsos of B-movie actors, straining
towards the throat – forever to navigate the Has-Been
or Never-Been, or the Never-To-Be. The director’s
“Cut!” startles The Hand. (Once, in its kitchen, stirred
by the glow of 40 watts, it remembered, almost
remembered—a flavor. With no mouth to feed it began
chopping a poor man’s one pot meal.) Released
from the set it goes home on public transportation,
clinging all the way to the overhead railing, orphan
on the row of bodied hands. At night it climbs toward
sleep, just beyond reach. It cannot think yet it grasps
the wrongness of everything. Poor Horrible Hand!
It can’t even shoot itself in the head. Now it curls
on the windowsill, in love with the full moon.
She Thing. Face Belonging to No Body.
(From Crime Wave—Giant Claw, 2025)
© 2025 Suzanne Lummis
Suzanne Lummis was a Featured Poet at the October 2025 Second Sunday Poetry Series
Suzanne Lummis was a Featured Poet at the October 2025 Second Sunday Poetry Series