13.Poetry is everywhere and sometimes it manifests as poems
when that happens it's very beautiful
Hello loves, dears, fellow dynamic organisms— Spring has sprung and so have I. Well, I haven’t sprung yet, but I’m feeling the compression, the kinetic potential of about-to-spring. Pressure makes diamonds, they say. Pressure also causes burnout, and some days I can’t tell if I’m a diamond or a dying star.
I have so much to be grateful for right now. Not least of all, collaboration and finding new ways to experience intimacy and expansiveness within this breathing city. My most recent endeavor was called Miradouros Project. It was a spinoff of a version of a project I did while living in Boulder, Colorado called The Neighborhood, a poem. You can watch a short video interview here where I talk about the project’s intentions —a bit of a cringe time capsule, but I’m sharing it anyway. The interview took place in late summer of 2020, when we were all baking up a storm, doing zoom pilates, and having a collective racial reckoning. Remember?
Anyway, that project was interesting and it planted a seed and tested the methods for the one I did more recently! This project was part of an exhibition called Sensing the City- Sense of the City which was an inter-city joint venture between Berlin and Lisbon.
I placed QR codes at miradouros, or lookout points, throughout Lisbon. The QR codes, like the ones in Boulder, led to google forms which contained poetry prompts people could respond to.
I got lots of gorgeous responses in many different languages and only one “go fuck urself” which is honestly a great ratio for any anonymous public forum.
I created a collective poem from these submissions with an accompanying video. I also wrote an original poem for each miradouro included in the project. So far I’ve written seven miradouro poems, and I intend to keep going.
I collaborated with German student and multidisciplinary artist Katharina Sonneberg, who I’d met through a mutual friend. I was describing the project to her over coffee and she resonated with the idea so much she ended up creating a collage for each of my miradouro poems! Here’s one of the pairings:
For the exhibition, we made an interactive map to hang in the gallery space. People could scan the site-specific QR codes and view the poems and collages.
I love making work like this. And I would like to point out that visual and installation artists usually do not receive payment or a stipend for exhibiting their work.
Stripping has allowed me to be my own patron. I’m like oh, you want some money to print supplies for your art installation? Here you go, sweetie! See, I am actually several people in an oversized coat. There’s an institution inside of me.
Taking applications for a patron. I’m serious. I want to sit in a chaise lounge and write about how the world is ending and a new one is being born. Or, that the world is ending and there’s nothing new about what’s coming, it’s just history doing its cycle, time singing the same song.
One of the biggest moods of this newsletter of ~big moods~ is that I hate work. I am anti-work and so angry and that I have to do repetitive tasks just to keep a roof over my head. I work so hard, as so many of us do— and for what? To help sustain terrible and pointless industries? I’m tired!!!
I feel like the pandemic has given us a taste of what it would be like to hang out a little more. To just be, and not worry about the next big move, the imminent second side hustle. That was nice, and now it feels like things are moving double time.
It’s like we have collective amnesia and everyone’s like “I’M BUSY!” running around trying to compensate for the time we all
s l o w e d d o w n
I’m tired, and I’m also impatient. I want things now; I want things yesterday. So, if I want a slower world I think I need to work on my own patience. However, it’s Aries season, so this whole working on my patience thing will just have to wait…
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Books books books! I want to take this space to share with you a few forthcoming poetry books you should definitely order:
Blue 4 U by Nicholas Teixeira (Dream Pop Press)
Neurotic Love Baby by Marie Conlan (Finishing Line Press)
Tropical Sacrifice by Lucas de Lima (Birds LLC)
The Eyelash Atlas by Lily Rose Kosmicki (Francis House)
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I also want to brag about my friend, Inês Oliveira, who is featured in this cinematic and hilarious Lidl ad.
Casting directors, get at her.
Finally, if you’ll permit me to give you any type of advice (I’m unqualified and, as I’ve said in many prior newsletters, I’m not a life coach nor do I intend to become one), I have two suggestions that pertain to your reading habits:
1) Preorder strange and wonderful poetry books from small presses! Many times, small independent presses rely on pre-sales to help fund the printing of a book! So, when you buy during this time you’re helping a little literary ecosystem thrive.
2) Read works in translation— only between 3-5ish % of translations are into English, while around 2/3 of literary translations since the turn of the 21st century are from English (Lane-Mercier 2014). Check out this TED talk that gives a moving account of one woman’s journey trying to read a book from every country. Suggest a translated text to your book club! Make reading translations a part of your 2022 reading goals.
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Thank you so much for spending a portion of your day with me and my thoughts. It means a lot to me to share with you all in this way. As always, this monthly newsletter is free. If you want to buy me a coffee or contribute to the dying star pedicure fund, my Venmo is @duffylala. You can also, of course, subscribe to my paid tier! I will be posting a reproduction of the full Miradouros Project there (with an interactive map, all poems, and the video).