Seree Cohen Zohar
The Long Hand-Painted Silken Gift
Her head leans back on
limber neck; she gazes, rapt --
two hands brush air in cursive strokes; two arms swoon into raw silk swathes
that twirl about her muscled thighs; and when she leaps, impromptu merges
with rehearsed ; her pulse arouses limbs; limbs seduce her pulse --
(she knows: beyond the on-stage presentness, tomorrow's a repulsive
thing where eyebrows strut in roman arches penciled onto crushed-silk
skin, where lipstick stains papery ruts to mock a scrawny jowl)
an ancient speech she once thought lost sings strong when her bare soles
embrace the wooded floor: in slide and spring she is adored, breathes fast,
breathes hard, sheathed in the long, hand-painted silken gift
that ends wrapped about
the wheel.
Jezreel Valley Summer
When legs and back and hands protest the morning's work,
when blowflies drift and straggler peaches plummet,
when the river, lilac-blue, brightens to a green so glossy
that rays smart in their own reflection,
noon prevails on me to linger:
Why don't you lie on last year's fallen leaves? You'll hear their crackle masked
beneath midsummer dust. Why don't you climb up high, stretch out along
a bough?--drop your thoughts into a pheasant's empty nest, reclaiming
them, refreshed, when skies have paled? Will you return?--no
creature yet elects to be my guest. Now I'll turn aside:
and looking forward to tomorrow,
let you and your orchard rest
while I seem to hide.
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>We are pleased to announce that Anne-Marie Thompson is the recipient of the Mezzo Cammin scholarship at the West Chester University Poetry Conference and Wendy Sloan is the recipient of The Mezzo Cammin Women Poets Timeline Project scholarship.
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Judith Schaecter: I found the beauty of stained glass to be the perfect counterpoint to ugly and difficult subjects. Although the figures I work with are supposed to be ordinary people doing ordinary things, I see them as having much in common with the old medieval windows of saints and martyrs. They seem to be caught in a transitional moment when despair becomes hope or darkness becomes inspiration. They seem poised between the threshold of everyday reality and epiphany, caught between tragedy and comedy.
My work is centered on the idea of transforming the wretched into the beautiful--say, unspeakable grief, unbearable sentimentality or nerve wracking ambivalence, and representing it in such a way that it is inviting and safe to contemplate and captivating to look at. I am at one with those who believe art is a way of feeling ones feelings in a deeper, more poignant way.
I would describe my process as derived almost entirely from traditional techniques in use for centuries. The imagery is predominantly engraved into layers of glass; only the black and yellow are painted and fired on in a kiln. The pieces are soldered together in a copperfoil and lead matrix.
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