Writing the Walls 2020 Poems
In its fourteenth year, Writing the Walls is a literary presentation that the Museum of Contemporary Art, Hudson Valley, created to coincide with its annual exhibitions. Writers submit poems or plays in response to artworks in the show, and the selected pieces are framed and placed near the art that inspired them. A "Poets' Walk" reading is held at the museum, and a book comprised of the written works and photos of the visual pieces is printed. This year, I was honored to have my poems, "Barefoot and Pregnant" (in response to Janine Antoni's Cradle) and "In My Library of Beautiful Lies" (in response to Jenny Holzer's Untitled: Transcendence, Relatividad, etc., 1990), chosen for the MOCAHV exhibition How We Live. However, just as the Pandemic has necessitated devising bob-and-weave strategies to fight for our lives, it has also compelled reimagining ways to give voice and space to our creative expression. MOCAHV is closed currently, and it is uncertain when onsite public viewing will be possible, but an online book has been created to present the poems and visual art of the Writing the Walls 2020/How We Live exhibition.
To see the book in its entirety, click here.
In its fourteenth year, Writing the Walls is a literary presentation that the Museum of Contemporary Art, Hudson Valley, created to coincide with its annual exhibitions. Writers submit poems or plays in response to artworks in the show, and the selected pieces are framed and placed near the art that inspired them. A "Poets' Walk" reading is held at the museum, and a book comprised of the written works and photos of the visual pieces is printed. This year, I was honored to have my poems, "Barefoot and Pregnant" (in response to Janine Antoni's Cradle) and "In My Library of Beautiful Lies" (in response to Jenny Holzer's Untitled: Transcendence, Relatividad, etc., 1990), chosen for the MOCAHV exhibition How We Live. However, just as the Pandemic has necessitated devising bob-and-weave strategies to fight for our lives, it has also compelled reimagining ways to give voice and space to our creative expression. MOCAHV is closed currently, and it is uncertain when onsite public viewing will be possible, but an online book has been created to present the poems and visual art of the Writing the Walls 2020/How We Live exhibition.
To see the book in its entirety, click here.
My recorded reading of "Barefoot and Pregnant" for the MOCAHV virtual Writing the Walls 2020 literary presentation
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Barefoot and Pregnant
Now and then, I go to the graveyard of me and visit the mirrored stones. Each cages a different likeness, save for one-- empty till I husk my next face. When the time comes, the crows will scream me a cake of rust while I feed the dirt new birth sac and wobble out on baby legs, naked as the last day I was born. Into light or dark, like a snake doctor ready for air, I bust out of old skin, my midwife hands waiting to catch the blood-slick crown. Come out of the holler hollering with a twang that won’t quit me no matter how many state lines I cross. Chew through the umbilical, shred it, hex the strings for my steel guitar. Deer lick. Panther scream. House full of bibles and lightning. Shit shed outside, a pot to piss in. Bare feet on thorn, gravel, hot asphalt. No shoes—when you step in it, you feel it. Moccasin creek. Spigot out of the ground. I know the stick, the fist, the sickle word. Name your weapon; I’m still walking. Catfish sting. Tobacco spit. Hellgrammite. Cinder-block church on the hill. Pictures of my people in caskets. Death keeps a straight face; keening and wailing we do. Red ’64 Plymouth Fury, palming the wheel with one hand. Camels, Raleighs, smokehouse roll-your-own. Real McCoys with grudges and graves to prove it. With all that behind me, you think I’m going on birth control? Labor is my life’s work. Take me or leave me. |
In My Library of Beautiful Lies
In my library of beautiful lies, the monster escapes his poison father-- the rue and gall of his life usurped by a strange peace that heals the way ice would devour a fever or cool a ferocious star. And for him, he who was born of death, I make a smile flower miscreant red upon his lips, for I am a sister to much that is cracked and broken. So let his pariah music roil the clever angels. He can wander where he likes. With profligate eye and heart, he will be my wild scholar, hero of epic joy. |