mardi 19 janvier 2016

Homegrown: For the 2016 Thames Art Gallery Homecoming

Homegrown
On the occasion of the Thames Art Gallery’s ‘Homecoming’ exhibition (January 23, 2016)


This January Gust of
Inertia has brought
you
home
to the Tender Stems
of your
   Beginnings.

It was here that
Mirror Mirror
showed you Odysseus
through Polyphemus’
silk-spun eyes;
or told
  fairy tales
each night before
a lush sleep,
like little Katzman
watercolours jigging
beside your crib.

Having your
‘Head served on a Platter’
only happened
in distant lands
like Kathmandu
or, god forbid,
Toronto.

No here, at home,
with these Small
Monuments to
your childhood
tales, you
transform the portrait
of whom you once
were to
who you are
now.

Here, your
two halves
share the same canvas,
both selves focused on
   immediate
 intentions.
Two beings:
looking you
straight in the eye

of home.

lundi 18 janvier 2016

For Kristy Cons 'Identities' Exhibition, ArtSpace, Chatham

This is Woman
On the occasion of artist Kristy Cons’ exhibit, “Identities” (January 23, 2016)


“Fatty!” the tosser-lescents
shame me,
their fellow female,
as I trot by,
trying to lose this excess.
Why bother?

Underwear cutting
  soft flesh;
foolish– like a circus
bear on a tricycle-
rolls at War with the worlds
around,
but I don’t have to be:

I will paint my nails black.
Stand on my head.
Jump rope (even double-dutch
if I so please).
I will wear square specs, and
let my long, luxurious
Big
Hair go,
down
stroking over those
skinny stragglers that
prod and
poke.

I will ride
My big butt
by.
Because this is
woman.


- Kara Smith, poet Ghobhainn

dimanche 17 janvier 2016

Stratford Chef School Meal at The Prune

Four courses with Prune

We all emerge from water,
Tentacles of eight roasted in slow, fragrant seas until
we
are tested
to be served;
Potatoes of the earth
nourish from the root,
growing long in warm soil,
filling with the taste
of the cord of life.
In air, country pigeons
take flight.
“It’s so rare to get them with
their heads still on,” Prune
considers,
“best serve them
next
to the seeds they eat.
Toasted”
On fire.
Invention of human,
born of the sacred four:
elemental

courses.