Grace Note The night by hours the horse by hands. Our grudges measured in the salt the moon shed. They weigh me down like prey does a mouth. You died like the animal of a sudden. Because it can not reckon its end. Each footfall in the past’s savage fashion. Because the one sound it knows is song. And the one song it knows is now. Afterfeather after the myth of Philomena The past tracks your scent. At your heels like king’s hounds and hungrier. This is what comes after massacre. Your tongue cut from the root. The purple need to weave what placed you rough- handed here. This is what comes after massacre. If the thread can be read by your sister. If you can kill what’s most dear to your defiler. If you can feed what’s most dear to your defiler. (Like the tail in the [...]
November 2014
Saba Razvi’s poetry collection, (Finishing Line Press, 2012), makes it apparent that Razvi is a searcher, one who welcomes a journey. Along Razvi’s journey, she discovers connections between the physical world and the spiritual one that exist, sometimes darkly, in nature. Trees float through the ether, rootless; the moon is described as not “sickle sweet”; the river, an imposter (“not stream nor sea”). We saunter along with her through demonic deserts and cliff ledges, looking for home. Home is a million miles away but we heave onward. Each step brandishes another mirror held up to our human face: we are, at the base, animals, finicky and trapped. Like animals, sensory perception and instinct reign over logic. Razvi’s text promotes exquisite synapse explosions of all five senses. We see “sorrow, purple as a plum.” We hear “the laughter of carnival in the distance,” and the “night breeze thrumming.” We consistently smell [...]
Cthulhu Lies. Oil and pigment on canvas. 36″x36″ MANDEM is the art name shared by Maize Arendsee (an art instructor and Studio Art MFA student at Florida State University) and her life-partner, Moco Steinman-Arendsee. Drawing on an academic background in classical mythology, gender studies, and critical theory, MANDEM works across media and materials (painting, assemblage/collage, film, sculpture, and book-making), intentionally destabilizing genre in terms of content and media. MANDEM has received numerous art awards, including Juror’s Merit at the LaGrange National XXVII (2014) and First Place at the FSU Museum of Fine Art Summer Annual Exhibition (2014). While being widely published and nationally exhibited, MANDEM remains actively involved in the Tallahassee art scene. (www.MythpunkArt.com) Artist Statement: We are a transdigital artist. Our art is an exercise in categorical violations, simulation, and narrative (translation: we are makers, rule-breakers, tricksters, and storytellers). We work across media and materials: painting, assemblage/collage, film, sculpture, [...]