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Spring 2008
VanBuren's picks:
Antonia Clark
Brad Johnson
Dale McLain
Roger Pfingston
Richard Rippon
John Anderson
Cristina Baptista
Cynthia Brackett-Vincent
Michael Brownstein
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Alison Eastley
Brent Fisk
David Fraser
Krikor der Hohannesian
Amy MacLennan
Lisa Markowitz
Damon McLaughlin
Micki Myers
Roger Pfingston
Heather Schimel
Rachel Stewart
Lafayette Wattles
Matt Alberhasky
Margaret Fieland
Robert Johnson
Willie Smith
Alex Nodopaka
Jennifer VanBuren
Jai Britton
Patrick Carrington
Download is still free.
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Jill Khoury
Art and Poetry Featured Summer 2006
Journeyman
Your hands are always busy
shaping something. I
watch the rumble, dance of bones
neat, compact, below
your olive skin. A tiny
bird’s nest of hair crowns
the right ring finger. Every
day you clean your nails,
pare them to nothing. I’ve seen
your brushes poised
on the sink, near the razor.
I think of monks’ hands. The small nirvana of constant work.
You’re making a necklace.
You pinch the wire, mold
it into circles smaller
than a dime. Chain mail.
Thick enough to have preserved
mortal Achilles.
I’m nineteen, and since
I’ve dreamt of men, I’ve dreamt
of charms, secret talismans.
Are you so patient that you’d love me forever?
Your brows weave themselves into
a knot; you’re at work
and have no time for questions.
You exhale through your nose,
file the edges so
they will lie smoothly
against my neck and answer:
I love you now.
In Place of Speech
Rebus
While you slept, I drew a story
on your back. It tells you what I cannot say
aloud. See a body in motion, stilled. Inked
limbs akimbo. Two bodies, interlocked.
Eight-armed monsters rise from the pictogram.
Our consonants mesh together in the mouth.
Aphasia of ecstasy. Each word a holy name.
Oil
Here we look more like brother and sister—
I, your shadowy twin. You are green gold,
turquoise, translucent white. For me,
paint in broad strokes: sienna, midnight blue,
pewter gray. Use your fingers. Add pink,
silver, with a detail brush. Practice first.
This last part is harder to get right.
If you step back, you can distinguish
a palm, a breast, our eyes, your neck.
Our hair swirls together like a sandstorm.
Diptych
We sleep like sarcophagi of queen and king.
Stately, large eyes watching other worlds.
We sleep like lovers laid in a double grave.
On our backs, hands joined, bodies framed
in ripples of burgundy. I am less afraid,
knowing we will return to the same dust.
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Kinetic Installation
We’re made of painted wood,
suspended with wires. Gears
click, lock, turn. There’s an equation
to describe our movement through space.
We are exactly the sum of our parts.
We are sphere and bird wings, thorns,
knotholes, electricity, fractured light.
To the atoms that roll and shiver
within us, our bodies are a universe.
for Michael
My Background
I think of myself as a poet first, and then an artist. My path as a poet was always pretty clear, but when I began my artistic endeavors, my confidence was very low. I’m legally blind, and one generally hears of blind poets, but not blind artists. So I kept this particular passion to myself because I was afraid of not being taken seriously. I use a combination of photography, found objects, collage, acrylics (usually thickened with gel or adhesive), scans, and other digital manipulation. I call the finished products “paintings” though, to simplify. I started doing these paintings sometime while I was in college, going to school for poetry. I had wanted to take an art class, but was too shy.
However, when I started graduate school (for my MFA in poetry), I took classes in disability studies, which is a cultural-theory examination of disability. After doing some research, I discovered that blind artists really do exist. This added knowledge gave my confidence a boost. I got some formal training and started displaying more work in public. It’s still only recently, though, that I’ve taken this very personal pursuit and moved it into the light.
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