new york ironweed
By Amanda Deutch
“It has been said that the average American recognizes over 1000 logos and the products they’re related to and yet less than five plants or birds.”
— Brigitte Mars
Part spell, part plant guidebook, these poems are wild feminist creatures. All of the poems in new york ironweed take their titles from an often overlooked aspect of New York City — its weeds, wildflowers, native plants, and trees. Each poem's language decomposes by the end of the poem in the way flowers shed their petals and decompose back into the soil after the summer. The poems began during the new moon in January 2023
As gentrification continues to swallow the City whole, giving people an opportunity to stop, look, and listen to the wilderness and weeds along the City’s edges and enjoy the flowers in the cracks of the street is a radical act. Habitat loss, pesticides, and climate change are threatening insect populations worldwide at an alarming rate. We’re losing pollinators at a time when we’re demanding more and more pollination. Humans are dependent upon pollinators for our food supply. In 2019, Biological Conservation reported that 40% of all insect species are declining globally and that a third of them are endangered. Accordingly, with the threat to bees, monarchs, and other essential pollinators, drawing attention to the weeds and native plants around us that feed these pollinators demonstrates the importance of local flowers and weeds to our survival as a species in a time of climate disaster.
Eat the weeds.
cyanotypes by Amanda Deutch
giant sunflower
unexpectedly
in this city
it comes down to you and me
the hope you give
even throughblurred lines
the tattoo, bodega flowers
you already know
it has been written
and it is a gas gas gas
to appear in ink
on the bonny bone
of my eastern most
ankle
an ink blot
figment
of multiple souls
so we exist
wildly in this cultivated space
ax me how
on the answering machine
ax me how?
cxx
hyr
bgryy
hydgn
cyanotype (c) Amanda Deutch
cyanotype (c) Amanda Deutch
shrubby cinquefoil
five fingers
crampweed
goose tansy
who named you?
does it suit you?
you can change your name like
you change your underwear
I keep mine
like a weight around my neck
reminding me
of all I have left behind
and overcome
its heft has finally stopped
dragging me to the ground
to kiss
the weeds
I eat them
now.
love it
or leave
it
goo g
ghost
ffejhgui
seom
slender yellow wood sorrel
sexy sorrel
butter me up baby
you are sour and
good hearted
edible, oxalic, don’t ride the bully
don’t rat on your friends
or burn your bridges
no one has bootstraps any more
so feel all the feels
this right here is brave
she tells you you have a bad voice
so you say you want wolves to eat all her souls
and future souls
melted buttery sun
this is the movement of concrete
and pink summer dresses
fck mgee
bbfaa
sdrf
eeedgg
so si
so si me
so se me do
cyanotypes (c) Amanda Deutch
cyanotypes (c) Amanda Deutch
wild bergamot
silly
little self
watch your wiggle
way
dont let anyone
smoke it
or take it
you can finesse
anythinhg
it is your
nature
do it
so you know
so
see
sa
asou
csoo
saif
u tu\ as uo\\are
safe
cyanotypes (c) Amanda Deutch
About The Author
Amanda Deutch is a poet and a fourth-generation New Yorker. Her poetry has been published in The Brooklyn Rail, The New York Times, Oversound, Cimarron Review, Interim Poetics, and in many other journals and magazines. She is the author of wild anemone, (an artist book collaboration with Sarah Nicholls) and several poetry chapbook collections, most recently, new york ironweed (above/ground press, 2024), Bodega Night Pigeon Riot (above/ground press, 2020) and Surf Avenue and 29th Street Coney Island (Least Weasel Press, 2018).
Deutch lives in Brooklyn, where she often looks for weeds and flowers in the cracks of the sidewalks.
You can find out more on IG: @msamandamyc or www.amandadeutch.com
