Tag: poetry

by jad

Let Us Compare Mythologies

Leonard Cohen’s first publication was a book called “Let Us Compare Mythologies,” a phrase that kept nagging me as significant to my trip to Montreal. What if we compared mythologies? Settler versus indigenous; English versus French; Expo 67 versus FLQ 70—what would we find at the other end of that trigonometry? That line comes from the slim volume’s second poem, I would learn, one with a most elusive title of its own: FOR WILF AND HIS HOUSE. The poem itself is a touching testament to the harsh contrasts of Jewish agency within Christian structuration. You can find it online read … Continue reading “Let Us Compare Mythologies” →

by jad

Montréal: Cohen & Kateri

On our first night in Montreal, we tried to watch a documentary called “Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Leonard Cohen,” but we were so tired that we started drifting off a few minutes into it. That was enough time, however, to catch a Leonard Cohen refrain from an old interview from his youth that would play in my head as we huddled under the world’s smallest umbrella in the world’s most terrifying sneak-attack thunderstorm. After asking Cohen what concerns him, and after Cohen laughed and demurred, insisting that he hasn’t the faintest concern, the interviewer pressed the poet to share what … Continue reading “Montréal: Cohen & Kateri” →

by jad

Fragment Fragments

“If the fragment is truly broken (frangere), it cannot, it seems, be thought of in terms of a part (portio), for the part, as part of a whole, would deny that which is broken its broken nature, its different status, by relating it always to the former (whole). The fragment…must be thought of apart from a part, and therefore as wholly distinct from the whole (of which the part is a part) as well.” (Dan Mellamphy, ‘Fragmentality,’ 1998) x “Contemporary poets use all three modes of fragment, sometimes all at once. First, the fragment can illicit a response or echo … Continue reading “Fragment Fragments” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2022: Maya

These double exposures are from my very first #filmswap: I shot the roll in Bellingham, then Maya, whose poetry I feature here, shot over it a second time in San Diego. We had a vague idea of what each of us was planning, but every composition you see here and in the next two posts was completely accidental/providential. I love everything about this. I love how our images were taken in two borderlands on the two far ends of this western coast; two liminal spaces mirrored and refracted in our contrasting choices of locations—public and impersonal landmarks in mine, private and intimate spaces … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2022: Maya” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2022: Corinne

Corinne isn’t really on Instagram anymore, but this is how we connected: pouring our little hearts out into this app until we became friends a couple years ago around this time, after a chat about some #AdventWord posts I’d made. Since then, we’ve worked together on a couple of things, including the coolest battle vest you’ve ever seen and that gorgeous set of portraits that David took for @inconjunct. Though I’ve known her primarily as a visual artist, I’m touched and honored to share Corinne’s moving poetry in the next three posts: x WILDERNESS by @cascadiacore Once a wolf swallowed me, andcarried me in … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2022: Corinne” →

by jad

#AdventWord 2022: Sabrina

Sabrina and I worked on a video project called SANCTUS deep in the belly of the early pandemic that relied heavily on pieced together footage recorded at a distance, so we thought it would be poignant to reference & recall that time and visual grammar in this year’s Advent collaboration. In these next three posts, we will combine recordings of Sabrina’s liturgical action with imagery I’ve captured to illustrate Sabrina’s written words. BREATHE Breathe, and let thislifebloodinfuse every oneof your (30 trillion)cells,bodyandsoul x FIRE The flame flickers, shrinks, then leaps and grows, ready to kiss my fingers. As I hold … Continue reading “#AdventWord 2022: Sabrina” →

by jad

LOOK/SEE

There’s an ethics to looking that takes on sharp relief when one begins writing with light. Photography is the craft of capturing emanations from “out there,” and so, with a camera to look through, the predatory urge to survey and ensnare becomes a very real possibility. But to look is not necessarily to see, and there’s an ethics to that moment as well. Viktor Shklovsky writes: “this thing we call art exists in order to restore the sensation of life, in order to make us feel things, in order to make a stone stony. The goal of art is to … Continue reading “LOOK/SEE” →

by jad

Trip Like I Do—Ellensburg, June 27

The guy at Brick Road Books was full of stories. He told me about the biker gangs that congregate at Palace Cafe and the many permutations of place names that change with the tides of patronage. He also talked about the kind of outside real estate development that made the city what it is today. His way of speaking was hazy and circuitous, kinda like a Kerouac novel, so it was hard to grasp everything he was saying about the dynamics between locals and outsiders trying to make this place more attractive, but I do remember that, at one point, … Continue reading “Trip Like I Do—Ellensburg, June 27” →

by jad

Hexed Writing

I heard about a professional poet who was fired for her poetic rumination on the irrelevance of poetry the other day. I didn’t dig too deeply into the full story; I wanted to avoid taking away from the poetry of that brut fact—a profession, arguably founded on the two-faced angst of expression, closing ranks when foundational angst is expressed, does feel pretty two-faced, to me. The clickbait writes itself: from rumination to ruination—and you won’t believe what happened next. Wild Words, HEQ #5 (Read more…) This is a piece that came to me in a flash a couple of days … Continue reading “Hexed Writing” →