Davi Nicoll is a Kansas kink poet. I encountered Nicoll at an open mic. Nicoll’s poems are firmly centered from a women’s gaze. Her poems explore sexuality and pleasure. Her poems also explore subversion, and submission, and trust within relationships. The poetry Nicoll writes speaks directly to women and feminine-presenting men who are taught starting in preschool to do what they must to keep the men they encounter in the grocery store, at church, at school, at the gas station, and in the workplace happy to protect themselves from physical harm. This protective state of mind is at the center of Nicoll’s chapbook Prairie Bitch.
Prairie Bitch explores how the title character lives as best they can in dead-end, working-class trending towards poverty Kansas. The character could live anywhere west of Topeka. They are doing the best they can in whatever job they can find. Nicoll uses a third-person omniscient voice to describe the character’s life. Mentally and spiritually the title character aims towards a life larger then what they are experiencing.
“Pr@irie bitch
from Prairie Bitch by Davi Nicoll
uses @ libr@ry c@rd-drives
the speed limit-works
fine dining-elistens to NPR-…”
The title character maintains their external shell because they are there for themselves, not the benefit the men around them. I assume, as a single woman in Kansas myself, the term “bitch” is a crown, coronet, or title adopted by the title character because that’s what the men in the place of employment, bar, or convenient store call them because the title character refuses to act obsequiousness towards anyone.
“Pr@irie bitch’
from Prairie Bitch by Davi Nicoll
comes to the b@r
@lone, le@ves @lone-
usu@lly-drinks shitty beer
but not the shittiest beer
-cr@ves red wine & mezc@l-…”
The title character chooses courage as they encounter and live through the drudgery of dead-end jobs and everyday violence and abuse. It would be easy for the title character to give up their ambitions and plans under the pressure of the constant physical and psychological headwind they experience. “Pr@irie bitch / bides her time.”
As an object, the Prairie Bitch chapbook is fun. Prairie Bitch is a hand produced chapbook. The cover’s printed design suggests free flowing hand embroidery. Hand embroidery of paper is common in the US Midwest as greeting or holiday cards and Christmas or Easter ornaments at local art and craft shows. The printed page is common copy paper. The printing has the look pages were spun out of a worn-out, black ink smearing mimeograph machine. I understand Davi Nicoll uses old typewriters to make her works. This makes the lettering and atmosphere of the print feel worn an guarded. The look of the print of the chapbook compliments the poetry. I like the feel Prairie Bitch is an art book. I look forward to seeing and hearing what Nicoll does next.
Follow Davi Nicoll, and purchase her chapbooks, on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/loadbearingdelusion/
Davi Nicoll was the featured poet at a Topeka, KS’ open mic Words in the Wind, July 2024 hosted by the Kansas Authors Club District 1 at Round Table Bookstore. Words in the Wind is held the fourth Wednesday of the month at Round Table Books in the North Topeka Arts District. Sign up to read starts at 6 PM and reading starts at 6:15. Poetry and prose are welcome. The Words in the Wind schedule and its featured writers are listed on the Kansas Authors Club District 1 Facebook wall, https://www.facebook.com/KACDistrict1
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