drawing above by Flore Thevoux
Once Upon a Cicada Moon
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Once Upon a Cicada Moon is an alchemical mix of folklore, ballad, and long form poem. Anneysa Gaille's debut is a channeled feminist tale that invents new ways to score voice on the page, full of lacy gaps to let in breath, to breathe in the bayou.
“With her poetry, Anneysa lassoes the moon and brings it down to dance amongst the bluebonnets and bayous of Texas.” —Anne Waldman
"In this exhilarating poem, words seem to slide across the page, and what we find as we move through it are the traces of a powerful and mysterious desire. Anneysa Gaille is an heir to the expansive American long poem as it comes down from Walt Whitman, C.D. Wright, and Alice Notley." —Orlando Reade
"Once Upon a Cicada Moon is tender, haunted, and charming as hell. I loved sinking down through the openings of its lovely shapes, where I became one of the book's creatures, stalking low in the grass among cicadas, mockingbirds, a weeping muse, and a charismatic devil (in "snakeskin boots with gorgons guarding each hoof"). Anneysa Gaille has brought forth a world as alive and mysterious as any Texan landscape." —Taisia Kitaiskaia
Readings
Upcoming
- New York: September 11, 2025 at Lofty Pigeon Books
- New York: August 18, 2025 at Enoch's Coffee for Poetry Hell with Jay Gaunt, Terrence Arjoon, Qingyuan Deng, and Will Farris
Book Tour
- Glasgow: May 27, 2025 at Good Press with Maria Sledmere, Nat Raha, Ben Redhead, and Rosie Stockton
- Chicago: May 3rd, 2025 at the Whistler with musical accompaniment by Eli Winter
- New York: May 1st, 2025 Book Launch at Torn Page
- Los Angeles: March 28th, 2025 at The Poetic Research Bureau with Lee Ann Brown, Amy Cantanzano, Jennifer Firestone, Tonya Foster, Erica Hunt, Patricia Spears Jones, Harryette Mullen, Sawako Nakayasu, Julie Ezelle Patton, and Lynne Sachs
Please send an email to anneysagaille@gmail.com if you would like to do a reading with me!
Poems
"No. 19," BELLEVILLE PARK PAGES (2013)
"No Such Thing as an Undisturbed Creeper," America's Emerging Poets: West Region (2018)
"Amongst Just Planted Grass," Texas's Emerging Poets: An Anthology (2019)
"A Recipe from my Tita," Working Document (2019)
"During the Days of Sapphic Fragments," From Whispers to Roars (2019)
"Amazing Grace," Lucky Jefferson's Meliora issue (2020)
"Three (or more as needed) Times a Week," Flatbush Commons' Essential Work Vol. I (2020)
"We Have Already Given," Faddy Magazine's LOVE issue (2021)
"Eros and Civilization," Gesamt's Room Two (2021)
"Tell Me How," You Might Need to Hear This (2021)
"No Such Thing as a Final Resting Place," Halfway Down the Stairs (2021)
"For a Phoenix," For Starters: An Anthology of Prompts Volume 1 (2022)
"Beneath Battersea Bridge" and "In Our Study," Works & Days Vol. 1: Winter 2022 (2022)
"What Sound do Green Clouds Make?" and "Tryna Explain How Most of It Hurts," Vol. 3 Issue 2 of Volume Poetry (2023)
"Witch with Executive (dis)Function," Letters We Should Have Burned But Published Instead (2024)
Journalism
An Interview: Shaqayeq Ahmadian on the Continuum of Life, The Brooklyn Review (2020)
We Are All Tomorrowpeople: A Review of Samuel Amadon's Listener, The Brooklyn Review (2020)
Anya Anti Interview, Faddy Magazine (2020)
Anthony Peto Interview, Faddy Magazine (2020)
George Holz Interview, Faddy Magazine (2021)
Miss. Aniela Interview, Faddy Magazine (2021)
An Interview: Taisia Kitaiskaia on Mystic, Moody, and Playful Things, The Brooklyn Review (2021)
Sante D'Orazio Interview, Faddy Magazine (2021)
Philip Pearlstein Interview, Faddy Magazine (2021)
How to Write a Love Poem, Couple Summit's Blog (2021)
How to Write a Love Letter, Couple Summit's Blog (2021)
How to Write Your Wedding Vows, Couple Summit's Blog (2021)
Miles Aldridge Interview, Faddy Magazine (2021)
About Me
I'm a writer from Texas who lives in Brooklyn. In 2018 my chapbook, No Such Thing As, was published by the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Chicago. My first book, Once Upon a Cicada Moon, was published by Tender Buttons Press in May. I teach in the English Department at Brooklyn College and am a contributing editor for Ugly Duckling Presse.
anneysagaille@gmail.com