Surrealist Tourist: Alessandra Bava Honors Each Exquisite Corpse By Jennifer MacBains-Stephens In They Talk About Death, Alessandra Bava’s first chapbook published in the United States (her third, internationally), Bava represents the voices of the dead through thirteen poems about Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Patti Smith, Henry Miller, Amedeo Modigliani, and Arthur Rimbaud, among others. Lives cut short by drugs, suicide, illness, and murder – these artists and writers inspire Bava’s work. In this chapbook, assembled and handmade by editor and publisher Juliet Cook, ghosts requite and haunt red-walled Parisian cafes, New York street corners, and dark, succulent gardens. It is no wonder that Bava would be able to channel many voices: she is an active participant in the World Poetry Movement, which uses poetic action to promote multinational communities that work towards social, ecological, environmental, and mental health, revering cultural diversity and social transformation. She is also a member of [...]
Fox Frazier-Foley
X Major Some images from the original archive are unavailable. Pines ARTIST’S STATEMENT: I think of these two pieces as being very deeply connected. The one big difference between them is my state of being when each was made. Pines was created about five years ago, before I had really fully realized what I was doing or who I was. Sometimes, when we are just so deep in our own circumstances, the ‘aha’ moments come in disguise. This image was one for me — the pines behind my home were my life vest until I could believe in myself. They promised me that one day my creative impulses would be integrated into my life in a way that make sense. X Major, on the other hand, was created after a sometimes-painful period of self-realization. I envisioned it in conversation with Fox Frazier-Foley’s collection of poems, Exodus in X Minor. For [...]
EXCERPT FROM EMERE’S TOBACCONIST (FROM DIATOMHERO: RELIGIOUS POEMS) Nothing is to be preferred before justice. -Socrates There are roach motels Set out around almost every portal to heaven. Watch for them, but do not beware, my love For when the sweet die The adhesive turns to honey on their feet. I There was one point When I had rolled over slightly to the left When I thought I felt a slight peace. I just seemed to bleed out faster that way . Once someone bent down and lapped a stream from my ear- A childhood friend of mine Twenty years ago in rural Ohio, Long since spread out into middle age, Across a landscape fate would sow for her. I wanted to reassure her, Rachel, you’ll live. I was already halfway in paradise, Waiting out my death. The destruction to my body was like a pedicure. As I flipped through [...]