THE EXHIBITION
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THE EXHIBITION •
The Revolution is Knocking At Our Door
Mario Framis Pujol is a cross-pollinated wanderer, what dances in the opaque, the chaotic, the tender, a being with the land... Their research- based practice circles around things like farming as liberation, politics as a crack, cooking as sovereignty, self-expression, vulnerability and consciousness through intimate contact with nature and the creation of open communal spaces for deep listening of bodily sensations. He dedicates their days to tending the land, as a farmer and as a facilitator to share his experience with multispecies groups who want to cultivate inner peace, learn from the natural world, inspire themselves in the day to day, hence being able to focus our perspective, in aspects related to work, food and social ecologies, through artistic harmony
Photographer - Mario Framis Pujol
The Revolution is Knocking At Our Door
what happens
when architecture starts to crumble,
when our fundamentalism cracks,
when our baseline realities shake,
when the arrangement we were born into;
an apartheid,
which isolates bodies,
when the promise of stability
pulverizes.
when did we all sign up to keep this wheel turning?
when
were we told
to resist the new,
to be polite,
to be tidy,
to be pure,
to be clear,
to be predictable,
to be digestible,
to navigate all the isms?
18:23 & it’s raining heavily in Beirut,
an acid rain of despair
soaking the bodies
of the ones who look for refuge,
the ones
who can’t even see
how severely traumatized they are.
this emerging
is perverse,
there are no highways here,
no planes to take,
no pavement to walk,
on the dancing bridge.
the ones who know
will be waiting for us there
sucking their teeth.
a longing comes back
because I feel removed,
distanced from the story of love
that haunted my life,
the tears run down
without even knowing
where this vulnerability comes from.
seeing you on the other side of the screen
as the beautiful being
that soothes me in sweetness & warmth.
how can I be radically hospitable
without you being here,
without even knowing if you see me,
risking being where I truly am.
there are no solutions we can purchase
that can treat our misery,
that can heal the planet.
where is the attachment I have
to my identity
to the perpetrator who lives within me
what is in my body,
that my mind doesn’t know?
& as we dance
we’ll face the politics,
the question of how am I
being part of this revolution
that is already knocking at our doors.
Mario Framis Pujol is a cross-pollinated wanderer, who dances in the opaque, the chaotic, the tender, a being with the land... Their research-based practice circles around farming as liberation, politics as a crack, cooking as sovereignty, self-expression, vulnerability, and consciousness through intimate contact with nature, and creating open communal spaces for deep listening of bodily sensations. He dedicates their days to tending the land, as a farmer and as a facilitator to share his experience with multispecies groups who want to cultivate inner peace, learn from the natural world, and inspire themselves in the day-to-day, hence being able to focus our perspective, in aspects related to work, food, and social ecologies, through artistic harmony
Change Ahead
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Photographer - Tobi Brun
Change Ahead
Michigan—We had so much rain
and lightning shooting into life
last night that worms are advancing,
forming their lines in the streets,
wrestling with asphalt, terrain,
finding ways to extend their white,
pink, and six-inch ruddy selves
into the margins, signaling change
ahead like a barricade of brown,
like miniature rusted silos, moving,
where he says in his yard, I used
to work up there at the co-op, but
they’re going to move those silos—
someone wants them for a recording
studio, he says, scraping fingernails
against siding like a twisty worm—
so, I walk farther, past four-leaf
clovers and a freckled girl, where
worms crawl under her feet, but
her face is smiling like change.
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Touch of Air
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Photographer - Tobi Brun
Touch of Air
In floats and waves, to a sedge
of six sandhill cranes overflying
in a four-cycle chortle—I attempt
to imitate their calls from marsh
perch, warmed in my comforter,
in my own bed, but tongue won’t
curl around sound—and you say
you want to cuddle, falling into fog
—so, I massage your thigh, once
severed, bone cut, implanted,
gusseted like foul, sagging in a bog
of depression that warms turkeys;
we respond to healing as a touch
of air: simple needs that sound
so far away, as cranes massaging
breezes, waves of sound, hormones,
your breath becoming more assertive,
from your mouth, convulsed, as you
turn, raise yourself up, and—in this
moment—grasp, spring, to nose
upward and interpret, as if to fly.
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Plain Margins
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Photographer - Tobi Brun
Plain Margins
Lenten rose closes its shutters like waves
of yellow bikes tipping one onto the next
by the bookstore, where he shifts his eyes
from you to the garbage—ignoring you
like landmines ready to trip him up along
the street of your face that, he thinks, falls
toward the low end of redbuds under sugar
maples, gazebo of cellar doors; neighbors
who don’t look at you or walk on your side
of the street—little topiaries before dogs
bark nonsense; cats of Saturday morning
cartoons, children walking fog-like, as baker
opens his Little Library by the park vines,
good morning only for morning glories—
admiration comes from bees, coneflowers,
for whom you would give away all your
garden for a margin you could call plain.
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Anonymous
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Photographer - Tobi Brun
Anonymous
New Mexico—I know casa
of pecans, orchards dusting
mirage men traveling, helicopters
over pine mountains, sights
too complex to read, face of rocks
in a valley town, with a shed
as his home—and as he rises
from his cot, neat, beside rake,
hoe, blanket—he gives me no name,
to be anonymous, but extends his
chapped hand and a frame for photos,
twisted from cigarette packs, where I
keep a picture of my parents, the base
laced with twine, standing as artwork
—protected brown and crème in plastic
wrappers, tight as a hairline—and I
didn’t think to offer him payment
for his work, as we rarely do, we who
assume everything as entitlement—
so, now I hold the frame like his
fingertips are touching mine, with
all the anonymity of cellophane.
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Curl
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Photographer - Tobi Brun
Curl
Our community sits with trees,
where we come to speak—
not knowing how to thicken
mossy fuzz so trees will listen;
but our words curl before them
as the shaking of girls’ heads,
all in luxurious order, while
we hold our breath—sharing
exhalation, not as object,
but as the coming inhalation:
a community hairy with roots,
leaves, stomata, where trees
make our words wave, bounce
—we cannot grasp perfect sheen
without their air—so, comb your
snarls among jacks and roots,
voluminous as poetry—sleek
as the tallest woods—beautiful
as chest hair parting beech trees.
Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His work appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, Loch Raven Review, Minetta Review, Talon Review, Modern Poetry Review, The Passionfruit Review, Sparks of Calliope, The Wise Owl, Poetry Center San José, and The Orchards Poetry Journal, among other journals. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and wrote the ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). He posts at janwiezorek.substack.com.
Vacation
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.
Photographer - Tobi Brun
Vacation
Everyone wants to find a pink island
I alone seek the amber. In the sand
The seashells whisper: ‘Are you green or blue
Watching us bob on the foam? Is it true
The homes of the dead stay homes on the land?’
The mollusc-ghosts and the jeering sea strand
More than shells upon the shore. In the bland
Frothing waves, soap-rinsings, I see the hue
Everyone wants to find.
Isle of hiraeth in the palm of my hand,
Turn not your bitter neem-bark rose now. Stand
Firm in my fading memory. Your dew
And sulphur are alike dear on this new
Sea-leached ground lined with the pink seashell brand
Everyone wants to find.
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez
Twitter X: @hibahshabkhez
Insta: @shabkhez_hibah
Marinated In Sepia
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.
Photographer - Tobi Brun
Marinated In Sepia
The memory of innocence nags me
like lost keys and catchy headlines half-read,
wrenches me back like taps and stoves left on.
Bring back a sturdy, leafless tree, it cries
with branches like claws turned upward to catch
yourself as you fall from the sky.
Marinated in sepia, the three
intertwined demons of pain, shame, and dread
rake across my heart and pierce my soul. Born
whole but sliced by the unknown, child-me tries
once more to gather stray how-tos and match
its wits against the world; and I -
I must watch it fail again.
Hibah Shabkhez is a writer of the half-yo literary tradition, an erratic language-learning enthusiast, and a happily eccentric blogger from Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Pleiades, Miracle Monocle, Glassworks, Windsor Review, Moria, CommuterLit, and a number of other literary magazines. Studying life, languages, and literature from a comparative perspective across linguistic and cultural boundaries holds a particular fascination for her.
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/HibahShabkhez
Twitter X: @hibahshabkhez
Insta: @shabkhez_hibah