Jean Syed
Displaced person
"We both want cod and chips with mushy peas,
A plate of bread of butter and two teas."
"Coming up, Love." At last my native town,
The accent of the waitress matched my own.
"Ma'am, if it ain't ice-tea, make mine a Coke."
She looked fair tickled when my teenager spoke.
"Your lad's like someone in an American movie!"
And with her kindred voice displaced me.
Bleak Heritage
At Jordan Pond House, the way-things-were dictates.
No dunk-your-teabag-in-a-cardboard-cup,
This is a choicelessness very genteel:
Where tea-pots rule on tables on the shaven
Lawn, with popovers, and memories
Of mustachioed men, women with ties,
Who were to ingest the wilderness
In the dainties of civilization.
Now, vacationers take tea, love the rite,
The whole a selfie for sampling, sipping,
Enjoy a good time—hating each minute
As some wear slickers as this is rainy Maine.
The treat denied, the sight not seen, my rite
Of missing the would-be experience.
I am lovingly conditioned for
Often, I have memories of father,
Hands on wallet, on Wakes weeks at Blackpool,
Denying me a Knickerbocker Glory
Annually, or lying it was windy
(Breezeless to me) to go up the Tower.
Thus, honoring tradition after he died
I didn't have the treat, stayed on the ground,
Curtsies to the phantoms he tricked for me
With his bleak heritage of doing without.
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
 |
Megan Marlatt:Looking like large puppet heads, it was "anima", the root of "animation", that led me to the making of the big heads, (or "capgrossos" as they are called in Catalonia where I learned the craft.) Anima is the soul or what breathes life into a being and to animate an inanimate object, an artist must insert a little soul into it. However to bring attention to what is invisible, (the soul), I chose to mold its opposite in solid form: the persona, the ego, the big head, the mask. Nearly every culture across the globe has masks. They allow performers to climb into the skin of another being and witness the other's world from behind their eyes. While doing so, the mask erases all clues of the performer's age, gender, species or race. In this regard, I find them to be the most transformative and empathic of all human artifacts.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|