Ekphrastacy: Members Show 2020, “Bird of Paradise”
Mind your business
by Damien McClendon
after
Bird of Paradise
by Tai Gomez-Curtain
Don’t mind me
I’m just conversing with God
I’m just binge-watching memories I’m just window shopping futures
I’m just hoarding as much now as possible pay me
in cash but don’t pay me no mind
I’m just talkin shit I’m just speaking truth
I’m just voicing tongue tooth and nail
washing my face combing my hair
Don’t mind me I’m just changing the world
I’m just breathing tomorrow
I’m just on a big ass ball
Rollin through space kickin it With all my might I’m just
following my heart in a spaceship
I’m just imagining a future ancient
Don’t mind me
I’m just remembering what I’ve lost
I’m just remembering what I have not lost
I’m just holding my breath until nature makes me remember
letting go
Don’t mind me
I’m just going places I’m just seeing worlds
I’m just believing in love I’m just rebuilding a house
I’m just repairing a sky I’m just preparing a child
I’m just laughing till it hurts
I’m just hurting till it heals
I’m just bursting with ideas
I’m just itching to fight
Apathy
Don’t mind me
Mind your business
Tai Gomez-Curtain, Artist: I see my artwork as an accumulation of my fragmented thoughts. Sometimes I look at what I’ve created and it’s as if I’ve illustrated my own lucid dreams. I like to create a story with my art so that each viewer can be the poet and conceive his or her own narrative. To me, a story isn’t supposed to be monochromatic. A simple explanation doesn’t draw the reader in. It’s the color, the detail, the discernible passion deep within each chapter. That’s my goal for every piece that I produce, I want to explain what I’m telling in a way that dives deeper than the initial response; I want to generate a conversation. My desire is for each piece to spark visual wonder and for someone to view my work like a lucid dream from which they wish not to be disturbed.
Damien McClendon, Poet: Damien McClendon is a poet based in Cleveland, Ohio. A Youngstown native, McClendon moved to the Cleveland area when he was 13. He is a recent graduate of Kent State University, where he majored in Pan-African Studies. He now lives in Cleveland and works in schools and for non-profits doing community organizing that focuses on social justice issues. He is also a recipient of the 2018 Cleveland Arts Prize On the Verge fellowship for literature. McClendon’s work speaks to the experience of being a Black father, artist and teacher in one of the country’s most poverty stricken cities. Heights Arts’ Heights Writes Community Team awarded the Cleveland Heights Poet Laureateship to Damien McClendon in April of 2018. During his tenure he participated in and helped produce Heights Arts’ Ekhphrastacy Artist Talk and Poets Respond series, and performed various outreach programs in the community.
Please enjoy this video for Ekphrastacy April 2020 in Response to Members Show 2020:
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