Love Like a Mango

Dec 22, 2014

There was a fullness to our love

like that mango just within your reach
unblemished and warm
falling straight into your palm
eaten under the shade of the tree
juice dripping down your elbow

temporary in its bliss,
but perfect in that moment.

Showing|Learning

For one of my classes in my first semester of college, my final project was to create an installation demonstrating how I learned in the class. Throughout the semester I was perpetually frustrated with the course. It was based in art history, but the art we looked at and the conversations we had remained centred around whiteness. That is a story for another post though. The installation had to include an image of ourselves as learners, objects, and a quote. I have compiled some photographs of this final project, my statement, and audio from my final presentation.

Presentation Audio

“The world is nothing but my perception of it. I see only through myself. I hear only through the filter of my story.”

-       Byron Katie

In Psychology, there are two techniques that are recommended to help in learning and memory: elaboration and self-reference. With elaboration, the learner makes multiple connections to a stimulus. With self-reference, the learner makes these connections to their own experiences. My time in How Do I Look highlighted through absence how difficult it is for me to learn if I cannot elaborate and self-reference. One of our stimuli, the Womanhouse project, was a feminist art project focused on womanhood; but the white, suburban womanhood it portrayed was not something that resonated with me. The layers of my experience as a Black, Caribbean woman from a working class background made it difficult for me to connect with their narrative. One of the class’s texts, the introductory chapter of Practices of Looking, also discussed the value of self-reference, though it presented it in a different way. That initial chapter introduced the idea of ideologies as the beliefs and values that inform how an individual interprets the world. The ideas self-reference and ideologies as integral to learning and understanding stuck with me, and became the basis of my image of myself as a learner.

My piece, Iris, highlights these aspects of my learning process in two ways: the layers and the lens. Iris is made up of two parts to resemble an eye. The first is the iris, which is made of strips of my written assignments. The strips overlap, but the overall shape is confined within a concentric border. This represents elaboration the way every new assignment would build upon existing knowledge and understanding of what I knew.  The layers create a wide aperture, the centre of which is a black velvet circle, representing the way I absorb new knowledge. The entire image of the eye communicates the idea of learning and ideologies creating a lens.

The objects I chose tie my image and my in-class learning together again. I chose my annotated printout of the first chapter of Practices of Looking and my reading glasses. My copy of Practices is heavily annotated, often with notes that reference my experiences and perspectives. My glasses–which I only use when I work– echo the central theme of looking through a lens.  

always in the quiet hours (22 sept 2014)

at night i ask
when will i relearn to love myself
in the quiet hours

lessons i have yet to learn

(22 July 2014)

Things that start with
"maybe if I"
and end with
"then I will feel better'
rarely ever work.
Happiness will not come from someone else's touch
there is nothing and noone
you can put in your mouth
or on your body
that can bring you joy.

27 april 2014

self-loathing:
i find myself
relieved when vile men can
still find this expanse of flesh
appetizing

24 april 2014

you are
not a graceful
sleeper but i have learned
to love your sprawled sighs when
i can't
sleep.

primary caregiver

(july 2013)


Step one of growing older in the presence of the elderly: observe how the giants of your childhood wither into frailty
Step two: begin to second guess every eccentricity
Is this what they meant by signs to look for?
When did she get so small?
How could she have ever forgotten my birthday?
Step three: dance around her with the nervousness reserved for the ill.
She will look at you with the resentment that can only come from those whom illness has only left shame and regret.
Step four: begin to hold her hand again.

It is one to thing to care for the senescent
And another to do it in the house they raised you in.

bankrupt

(oct. 2013)


Part of me longs for richness

With wealth comes the freedom

To make your home in whatever place you like.

Tell me that true wealth comes from loving

And I will tell you that love goes far

But cannot feed empty bellies

You cannot pay bills on love alone

And too much of this life comes with a price.

Tell me I cannot eat money

But tell me what I can eat without it.

Tell me that true wealth comes from the people you hold in you heart

And I will tell you that there are people

Who want

-more than all these poor friends they seem to have-

To just stop feeling so worthless for a little while

Tell me again how your parents seemed completely certain

That sacrificing everything so their children could sample a bit of the lower middle class life was the right decision

Try telling them there is more to life than money

Tell me to rid myself of these ties to money

And I will tell you that you cannot unlearn generations of feeling that the money you earn is your only worth in one lifetime

And I still haven't learned to stretch poverty into a life lesson.

re: self care

I am learning mantras

And rubbing them

Like oils into my skin

Mine is a good body

And the world,

Wondrous as it is,

Is made more so

When I am in it

These are my balms.

Let them be salves

For the cracks in my soul.

on blooming:

lessons

i learned from the

pavement: life continues

to bloom; even through cracks in the 

concrete.

Re: Old Age

Day 8- Write a cinquain on a topic of your choice.

maybe

she lost all that

weight so you could get used

to seeing your giants shrink to

nothing.

To The Stump In my Garden

Day 7- Take a walk until you find a tree you identify with, then write a poem using the tree as a metaphor for yourself or your life.

To the stump in my garden that has begun to sprout
Mere days after its branches have been shorn:
Teach me whatever lessons you have learned
How to give thanks for your still solid roots
And how to recalibrate the hardened fibres of your bark
And make life once more.

Lemons

Day 5- Write a three line poem about lemons without using the following words: lemon, yellow, round, fruit, citrus, tart, juicy, peel, and sour.

My mouth puckers at the taste
But it is not without a lesson:
Take nothing without a pinch of salt

In Your Old Age

Day 3- Find the nearest book (of any kind). Turn to page 8. Use the first ten full words on the page in a poem. You may use them in any order, anywhere in the poem.

Senescence is the great equaliser.
great men, average men,
men of faith, men of none
living life with the promise
that some of its secrets will be revealed
but all you will ever learn
are verbs like forgetting
and dying.

Upon Review

Day 2- Who was the last person you texted? Write a five-line poem to that person.

I cannot write about you.
Poetry reveals truths
And I cannot hear those truths
Without revealing hurts.
I still have not healed from your last wounds.

Light Pollution

“the light reveals all

sins,” she always said. but the

dark shows me the stars.

Updates

Last October I attempted a 30 poetry challenge. I didn't get very far, but I'll be posting a few of the poems I didn't hate here.