Matthew Dickman (August 20, 1975 -) The hotel sign blinkingin the brainof my bodystops blinking but notthe whole sign,you know, just a coupleof the letters,the H and T.Then the E and Lso all that is leftwhen the whole leftside of my bodycomes to an endis the O. I am sitting acrossfrom a beautifulwoman, drinking coffee,and …
Jasmin Roberts – Self-Selection For Preservation
Jasmin Roberts My grandmother will tell you thatshe does not like white people,does not look them in the eye. W.E.B. Du Bois coined the term double consciousness in 1903.It refers to the psychological experience of viewing oneselfthrough the lens of a racist white society. He meant that to grow up black in Americais to be …
Continue reading "Jasmin Roberts – Self-Selection For Preservation"
Barbara Lydecker Crane – Mother And Child
Barbara Lydecker Crane Portrait painting, so long out of fashion,was all I did. Not by commission—I’d aska friend whose face was lined by life and passionto sit. Then I’d distort a bit: a maskwould simplify and heighten their emotion.This Harlem neighbor’s eyes are spelling fearas she holds her baby tightly with devotionand protection from who …
Continue reading "Barbara Lydecker Crane – Mother And Child"
Kamilah Aisha Moon – Storm
Kamilah Aisha Moon Night squall raging,black branchesbatter every windowas the sky lashesthe city. Without devices,all I can do is shelter in place& wait the latest nightmareout, find other sourcesof power as I sit in the darksave for a candle burningfor my mother writhingin an ICU & for the worldto make it against all odds.In every …
Natalie Diaz – The Facts of Art
Natalie Diaz (September 04, 1978 -) woven plaque basket with sunflower design, Hopi, Arizona, before 1935 from an American Indian basketry exhibit in Portsmouth, Virginia The Arizona highway sailed across the desert— a gray battleship drawing a black wake, halting at the foot of the orange mesa, unwilling to go around. Hopi men …
Dorianne Laux – Lord Of The Flies
Dorianne Laux (January 10, 1952 -) “Coronavirus Conference Gets Canceled Because of Coronavirus.”—Bloomberg News, March 10, 2020 I can already see the streetsfilling with corpses piledtenderly along the curbs.First the homeless, thenthe poor, then those whowere lost, depressed, lonely,alone. The rich will be last,top of the pile as they werein life. Dressed in their finery.Oh …
Claudia Serea – Parallel Heavens
Claudia Serea Doors closed,lawns freshly mowed,the heavens line up,a row of suburban houseson a quiet street.I imagine mine painted white,silent and sleepy,a provincial art museumwhere all the angels have been assignedto perpetual paperwork.One can't even thinkto jump from one heaveninto anotherwithout wings,or breaking a bone.And each heavenhas its own way to get to iton parallel …
Erika L Sánchez – Instructions For Living
Erika L. Sánchez It was the way summer hunted me:a sequence of instructionsin the folds of a flower.How do I explain the hatred of the sun,the terrible wonder of being alive?Fuck the fucking birds. I lookedto the sky to join the storms. I couldn’thave imagined you, swift as the lightningI traced with my finger, a …
Continue reading "Erika L Sánchez – Instructions For Living"
