SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: LYNNE KNIGHT

Lynne Knight (Matt Phillips)

Photo by Matt Phillips


AGAINST ORDER
By Lynne Knight

Tear the line into pieces.
                                                                                                    Open it out:
                          Let silence be
                                                       part of all that must be
said.

I can’t.                                                                                   I can’t.
It looks so disorganized. I want
to move it like furniture
back into place.
It’s a curse, your obsession for order,
my lover says, wanting me
                                                                                             wild—

So, to justify myself, I point out
that light in the night sky
may be traveling, but the stars stay
where they are.

Or do they?
What if some night Cassiopeia
fell apart,
splashed down like water?

What use the well-appointed bed,
the vacuumed rug,
the alphabetically arranged books
if a star came splashing down
like water, fiery water,
burning everything in its path?

All my molecules about to scatter—

just the thought of it makes me clutch
the sheets, press myself into the mattress—

but ah, the wonder of it, to be
            moving inside my lover’s
arms then, any second bound
                                                                                             to explode—


(Today’s poem originally appeared in Rattle , and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Lynn Knight‘s fourth collection, Again, was published by Sixteen Rivers Press in 2009. Her previous collections are Dissolving Borders (Quarterly Review of Literature), The Book of Common Betrayals (Bear Star Press), and Night in the Shape of a Mirror (David Robert Books), plus three award-winning chapbooks. A cycle of poems on Impressionist winter paintings, Snow Effects (Small Poetry Press), has been translated into French by Nicole Courtet. Knight’s awards include a Theodore Roethke Award from Poetry Northwest, a Lucille Medwick Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, an NEA grant, and the 2009 RATTLE Poetry Prize. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Editor’s Note: The desire for order and the need to control. So tempting. And yet, what control have we in the face of nature? In the face of love? We can try to keep this life as tidy as we like, but what use are our efforts in the face of a falling star? From the macro to the meta, today’s poem takes us on a wild journey through the mind of a poet who struggles against the wild, only to succumb to the wonder of what is beyond her control.

Want to read more by and about Lynne Knight?
Official Website
Sixteen Rivers Press Author Page
Poetry Society of America
Verse Daily
Connotation Press Author Page

Del sitio donde partir: Lecturas paralelas

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Del sitio donde partir: Lecturas paralelas

por

Pat Moggio

Acerca de mi costumbre de leer varios libros simultáneamente, consigo dos en el mismo período de tiempo y los leo en forma alternada hasta finalizarlos en lo posible en la misma fecha. Es decir, mi cabeza ronda esas dos lecturas por unas semanas, incluyendo muchas veces una vuelta y releída de secciones de mi interés y anotaciones de reflexiones. Por lo general los libros no se vinculan uno con otro en tema o en estilo, más bien intento sean diferentes. Sin embargo en esta oportunidad a pesar de la divergencia encontré -y fue mi motivación a escribir sobre ello- una cercanía respecto del uso del espacio de las personas, en un ejemplo tan primitivo, limitado físicamente y discutiblemente necesario: la casa.

Casa. ruca. huaca. maison. house. haus. ev. huis. domus. oikos…etc.
Edificación material donde viven una o más personas. Lugar donde abrigarse del inmenso exterior abrasivo y permitir el interior abrazador.

***

Interior/ exterior.

Aquel que está afuera quiere entrar, el que está adentro quiere salir. Le agrego: lo que está en el medio quiere existir.

La casa ofrece un lugar seguro fuera de los espacios de encierro que por lo general comprimen demasiado: sea oficina, hospital, cárcel, la sociedad parece volverse individuo entre una continuidad de paredes familiares. Las paredes de mi cuarto me recuerdan quien soy cada mañana al despertar; el tapiz colorido que en ella colgué rememora mi viaje a Machu Picchu, la mirada congelada de un Jimi Hendrix con sombrero de ala ancha flota en ese aire, mis auriculares desde un clavo penden y serpentea su cable largo hasta la alfombra del piso; ahí mismo descansan mis botas negras que me llevaron por estrechas calles del afuera el día anterior. Para el interior elijo pies descalzos y la comodidad de saber que cuento con mis dedos para patear segmentos de espacio; desde el cuarto hasta la cocina, desde la cocina hasta el baño, desde el baño hasta la cocina y vuelta al dormitorio. Sin más que ascender a los extremos del cielo raso, ahora estoy en mi pieza tomando mate y contra la ventana se fuman las horas.

***

Privada propiedad/ público impropio

Existe un carácter urgente y determinante del anhelo de la clase obrera por ser propietario de una casa. En esta fracción social se incluye tanto el pequeño burgués, el proletariado, los artesanos, maestros, muchos más y varios conocidos míos. Todos ellos en una sociedad donde el perfeccionamiento de la tecnología priva de trabajo a multitudes de obreros generando un gran ejército de desocupados y por otro lado echa a la calle periódicamente a grupos de trabajadores que se amontonan en los márgenes de las ciudades. Y como esto sucede mucho más a prisa de lo que se edifica para ellos, entonces siempre es fácil encontrarse arrendatarios para las más feas locaciones. El dueño de una casa tiene el derecho y hasta el deber de exigir sin consideración los precios de alquileres más elevados para su inmueble. De este modo deviene que el problema de la vivienda no es producto del azar, es necesario, con sus varias repercusiones directas, por ejemplo sobre la salud del que alquila la pocilga.

Cabe mencionar, que es además oportuno, participar a la tierra donde se construye una casa y reposa al menos unos 100 años. Imaginarse solo que cantidad de personas podría habitar en el pasar de los años los espacios de una sola casa, por supuesto tomaría muchísimas lunas.

***

Orientación / desorientación

Ahora salgo un poco de las ciudades. Fuera de ellas las personas pertenecen a la tierra, y la única forma que tiene la gente de conservar la tierra es pisándola, porque si no se vuela. Como el campo abierto no entiende de renta y uso del suelo, se deja adornar y equipar para que el ser y estar de un grupo humano produzca y siga adelante.
Es común observar en el campo dos tipos de casas, la nueva de techo a dos aguas, revoque liso y urbano; la otra casa, vieja con paredes construidas de adobe, techo de ramas y barro. Muy claro observo, la artesanal representa el pasado, la nueva el presente, una copia de la ciudad llevada al campo. Las de adobe parecen devenir espontáneas, entonces se orientan a protección del viento, buscando la mayor iluminación del sol. Las casas nuevas se instalan de acuerdo al capricho de algún personaje político con ganas de seguir la ruta que viene desde la ciudad, como si hubiera sido remolcada desde allí con la intencionalidad del momento y luego olvidada.

***

Entrada/ salida

El marco y la puerta. Arco que anuncia los limites de un espacio a otro y obliga a decidir cual dirección tomar, hacia el interior o hacia el exterior. Ya no se trata de una edificación, es un espacio libre pero estrictamente regulado, hasta con medidas estándar de 1.20 cm. por 2 metros aproximadamente. La puerta no es muro, la puerta es flexible se abre se cierra, se entorna, cuantas veces se quiera. Por eso en el marco, el espacio libre, su puerta no molesta, hasta en muchos lugares es vaivén o de vidrio, tiende a desaparecer, parece ser solo un accesorio.

Me vienen a la mente los desgastados candados que cierran algunas grandes puertas en la ciudad de La Paz o en Cuzco, frente a la Plaza de Armas. Puertas resueltas en madera sin picaportes, solo cerrojo y gigantes candados, donde esto solo es el aviso de presencia o ausencia del alguien en su interior.

…luego vuelvo del viaje casero, como despertada suavemente por un golpeteo y pienso: -quien vendrá a llamar a mi puerta?-

***

Lecturas referenciales:

La poética de espacio. Gastón Bachelard. (1957)
Contribución al problema de la vivienda. F. Engels. (1873)

***

Sobre Pat Moggio: Nació en Patagonia Argentina, libre escritora de poesía y prosa desde niña. Leyó en vivo en ámbitos underground, realizó suelta de libros espontáneas en estaciones de bus, tradujo letras para música, redactó notas de prensa musical y para revistas digitales sobre temas culturales. Bailarina, exploradora de diversas técnicas, dio clases y participó en performances y flash mobs. En paralelo estudió y trabajó en gestión de turismo cultural. Viajó como mochilera por parte de Sudamérica participando en proyectos voluntarios. Actualmente vive en San Telmo, Buenos Aires, escribe y proyecta improvisación de danza contemporánea con músicos experimentales.
http://residualplan.tumblr.com/

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: LYTTON BELL

Pink

Photo by Robert Sanders

JANE’S HEARTBREAK YARD SALE
By Lytton Bell

Who sells used sex toys at a garage sale?
I knew I had to pull over
as soon as I saw that table full of dildos
just to hear this woman’s story

A whole bed was for sale
and a claw-footed bathtub
a motorcycle, a large stack of books
lingerie and ten photo albums
Photo albums?
Leafing through, I could see that they were all
happy couple love photos:
their trip to Hawaii
backpacking through Europe
mountain climbing in Tibet

And I shouldn’t forget to mention all of the love notes
three huge cardboard boxes full of them. I picked one up:
I stood outside your window for hours last night
while you were sleeping
hoping you would feel me there, and pull open the curtain

I approached her as she sat by the cash box
wearing a pair of oversized pink sunglasses
So, this is everything he ever gave you? I asked her, trying to be nonchalant
She nodded
I was going to light it all on fire, she told me
But what’s the point?
True, I replied, not sure what else to say
She seemed so peaceful about it. Almost happy

Just then I noticed a pile of cds:
Jane’s Joy Ride Mix
Jane’s Taking a Bath Mix
Mix for Jane for When She’s Feeling a Little Blue
And one called
In Case of an Emergency, I LOVE YOU
It was sealed with yellow CAUTION tape
and had obviously never been opened

Can I buy this? I asked her
$3.50, she said
I gave her the money and put the cd in my car
and cried and could not open it


(Today’s poem originally appeared in Rattle , where it was a 2012 Rattle Poetry Prize Finalist, and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Lytton Bell has published five books, won six poetry contests and performed at many California literary venues. Her work has appeared in over three dozen journals, web sites and e-zines. She lives in Sacramento, California. Lytton earned a poetry scholarship to the Pennsylvania Governor’s School for the Arts in 1988, where she studied with Deb Burnham and poet Len Roberts. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from Bryn Mawr College in 1993. Feel free to send Lytton an email at lytton_bell@hotmail.com.

Editor’s Note: Clear, narrative, and heartbreaking. Lytton Bell has a knack for relaying the real. What a fascinating moment, the intersection of these two lives, and how breathtaking the way their shared story speaks to us all.

Want to read more by and about Lytton Bell?
Poetica Erotica
Buy Nectar as an eBook from Amazon
Buy Body Image from Amazon

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: VALENTINA GNUP

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WE SPEAK OF AUGUST
By Valentina Gnup

                       Alone in my kitchen, I copy
a chicken salad recipe from a Woman’s Day magazine
and plan tomorrow night’s dinner.

                       We don’t know what will happen
between one raindrop and the next,
yet we speak of August as if it were a contract,
a promise the sky made.

                       When I was twenty-five I married a drummer
and silenced him with disapproval.

                       Now I’m married to a poet—
he reads poems on the porch
and pets my head like a puppy.

                       My daughters grew tall as honeysuckle and left—
they took their soft skin, their buttermilk biscuit smell,
the endless hungers that organized my days.

                       My domain has shrunk to the narrow bone of my ankle.

                       I did what was asked.
I did what I feared.
Like every woman I have ever known,
I became my mother.

                       I stroll through the rows of houses and yards;
above me a skein of geese break in and out of formation—
fluid as laundry on a line.

                       Other women are out walking their dogs,
murmuring to the mothers inside their heads.

                       In the eastern sky the first star is out,
preparing for the long night of wishes.

                       At dusk every flower looks blue.


(Today’s poem originally appeared in Rattle , where it was given a Rattle Poetry Prize Honorable Mention in 2010, and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Valentina Gnup has her MFA in creative writing from Antioch University Los Angeles. She is the winner of the Joy Harjo Poetry Prize from Cutthroat journal of the Arts and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Prize. In 2005 her chapbook Sparrow Octaves won the North Carolina Writers’ Network Mary Belle Campbell Book Publication Award. Her poems have appeared in the Hiram Poetry Review, Nimrod, Chelsea, Brooklyn Review, Crab Orchard Review and many others. She and her husband live in Portland, Oregon.

Editor’s Note: Today’s poem could be about regret or acceptance. It could be about rites of passage or about the inevitability of the cycle of life. The young woman makes mistakes. The experienced woman knows what it is to have made compromises, to have made sacrifices, to bend with the wind, and to become her mother. There is a nostalgia inherent in today’s piece; a longing not for the past, but a bittersweet looking both forward and back. Gnup’s startlingly honest reflection is paired with beautifully-wrought moments of language and imagery that heighten the joy and pain of a lived life.

Want to read more by and about Valentina Gnup?
The Best American Poetry
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation / wagingpeace.org
the-green-heart call

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: LEIGH PHILLIPS

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DEAR NEW YORK CITY, LEARN GENTLE
By Leigh Phillips

The sky regrets itself. By sky, I mean me.
Don’t let yourself get lost
because you think someone’s going to find
you. The story goes: no one’s

going to find you. You’re going to be on the
highway sifting Mountain Dew
bottles full of trucker crank piss and trading
them to eye‑wild tweakers

for a ticket back to tender. You are what is
tender. By you, I mean me.
The song goes: Heart. Ribcage. Envelope.
Heart. Ribcage. Envelope.


(Today’s poem originally appeared in Thrush and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Leigh Phillips is an Assistant Professor of English at Hostos Community College with the City University of New York. Her stories, memoirs, poems and criticism most recently appeared in Rhino, So to Speak: A Feminist Journal of Language and Art, and A Face to Meet the Faces: An Anthology of Contemporary Persona Poetry, edited by Stacey Lynn Brown and Oliver de la Paz. She is currently writing an epistolary novel in verse, generously funded by a grant from the City University of New York Research Foundation.

Editor’s Note: Firstly, I am a sucker for a killer end-line. It is done well rarely. But what is even rarer is a truly fantastic opening line. The kind of entry that embraces you. “Dear New York City, Learn Gentle” is that rare poem that offers us a fantastic first line. The first stanza goes on to take me exactly where I want to be taken. Beautiful. Lyric. Telling. Guiding me into the second stanza, where I am ready to fall into the poem’s soft downy or resonant emotion. But, no. Suddenly there is Mountain Dew and piss and—where am I? But a soft turn and I find I’ve got a “ticket back to tender;” I’m back in the heartbeat of the lyric. And then I’m sung a lullaby that blends into dreamscape: “Heart. Ribcage. Envelope. / Heart. Ribcage. Envelope.” Today’s poem is both finely-wrought and an unpredictable experience. In that way, it deftly mirrors the city it was written for.

Want to read more by and about Leigh Phillips?
Anomalous Press
Union Station
The Offending Adam
Softblow
Mad Hatters Review

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: CHRISTOPHER CRAWFORD

Chris Window

SO GAY
By Christopher Crawford

How gay is it
for two men
to stroke
the same dog
at the same time.

                           What if they’re both
sitting on a sofa watching
When Harry Met Sally.

How about two men watching
the same gorgeous sunset
             from the same high ridge.

                           And if a man daydreaming
on a bus ride finds his eyes when focus returns,
             quite accidently, on the crotch
                           of the man seated opposite.

How about two men riding
a bus into a gorgeous sunset
or two gorgeous men watching
a sunset in silence. How about
two men daydreaming and stroking
a gorgeous dog and the dog makes
a strange deep sound of pleasure.

What if the men are old friends.
What if they’re brothers.
What if there’s music playing.


(Today’s poem originally appeared in Rattle, was a Pushcart Prize Nominee, and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Christopher Crawford was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His poetry, essays and translations have appeared in magazines like The Cortland Review, Rattle, The Collagist, Agenda and elsewhere. His poems have been nominated for a couple of Pushcart prizes and he is a founding editor at B O D Y (bodyliterature.com).

Editor’s Note: We live in a day and age of extreme and imperative progress in the gay rights movement. Day by day, state by state, country by country, same-sex marriage is becoming legal and same-sex couples are fighting for—and winning—the rights they should have had all along. But the bigotry remains; the bullying, the violence. And this hatred is inextricably linked with language, with the politics inherent in language. When someone says “that’s so gay,” their intent may not be homophobic, but they are perpetuating discrimination none the less.

Today’s poem makes us consider the words we use—in our society, in our culture, in our day. What does it mean to be “so gay”? If you meditate upon the meaning of that phrase, Crawford shows us, you may discover the simple beauty of humanity.

Want to read more by and about Christopher Crawford?
The Cortland Review
Now Culture
Evergreen Review
The Collagist
Gray Sparrow

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: TIM SUERMONDT

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BAYOU PIGEON
By Tim Suermondt

Crawfish shadows on the street
and a gossamer elm by the drugstore―

a blind man on the corner plays a saxophone―
the locals say “he sees with his heart”

and, darling, I think I know what they mean―
the world gives as much as it takes.


(Today’s poem originally appeared in Thrush Poetry Journal and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Tim Suermondt is the author of two full-length collections: Trying to Help the Elephant Man Dance (The Backwaters Press, 2007 ) and Just Beautiful from New York Quarterly Books, 2010. He has published poems in Poetry, The Georgia Review, Blackbird, Able Muse, Prairie Schooner, PANK, Bellevue Literary Review and Stand Magazine (U.K.) and has poems forthcoming in Gargoyle, A Narrow Fellow and DMQ Review among others. After many years in Queens and Brooklyn, he has moved to Cambridge with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.

Editor’s Note: Today’s poem offers us a little song, a little food for thought, and a little optimism. In the end, it’s all about perspective; how do you see the world?

Want to read more by and about Tim Suermondt?
The Backwater Press – Trying to Help the Elephant Man Dance
NYQ Books – Just Beautiful

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: JESSICA COMOLA

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VALENTINE
By Jessica Comola

Let X stand for God. The one I love, let his name be God. And may we walk a wire taut with black birds. Let the wire snap quick as a switchblade across the back of a field. Where he is angry, where he pulls out a child’s shoulder blade like a bit of grey chicken, let there be a brick on his tongue. Let him smear an X across his chest in mud lie breathless in a field. The one I love, let him be a hare stained pink in the fur. Let him hold still in the long-grass like a railroad crossing. Where there is a brick’s weight, let it be the scream of a red siren. If you will be my Valentine, I will stand naked in the highway and burn pink. A switchblade snaps like a child’s hairclip. Somewhere a hare screams with a human voice. The railroad crawls on all fours. My Valentine holds his cross crossways and the long-grass makes a mud of it. If mud were a tongue we would speak it where the street makes a God at the stoplight. A siren sings through these wires. If the railroad is an integer, let it be a single switchblade. For what he did to a child, let him scream like a stoplight. If I crawl on all fours, let me go crossways. Let X equal Y. The one I love, let his name be God.


(Today’s poem originally appeared in Thrush Poetry Journal and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Jessica Comola currently lives in Oxford, MS where she is an MFA candidate at the University of Mississippi. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly, Redivider, Thrush, Everyday Genius, and Anti-, among others.

Editor’s Note: Today’s poem is dense like a forest. Alive and full of things you can neither pass through effortlessly nor understand at first glance. Don’t be afraid to spend some time within it. Let the story underneath the story grow roots and take hold. Find your steady ground in its alliteration, then stay a while. You may never leave.

On a personal note, because this series often touches on the personal, as I was preparing today’s post I received word that my MFA Thesis has been approved! I write to you, from this point forward, as Sivan Butler-Rotholz, J.D., M.F.A.

Want to read more by and about Jessica Comola?
“Girl at the End of a Matchstick” in Anti
“Begin Again” in Everyday Genius (click “View PDF”)
“I Saw a Swan Come Out of the Water” and “Hologram” in The Puritan (Canada)
An explanation/exploration of “Hologram” on The Puritan blog

SATURDAY POETRY SERIES PRESENTS: CARL PHILLIPS

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CHROMATIC BLACK
By Carl Phillips

Of the many things that he used to say to me, there are two
I’m certain of: You taste like a last less-than-long summer afternoon
by the shore just before September
; and

You’re the kind of betrayal, understand, I’ve been waiting for,
all my life
. When did remembering stop meaning
to be lit from within—bodily—
and the mind, briefly flickering
again out—wasn’t that forgetting? Somewhere
abandon’s still just a word to be turned away from, as from a man
on fire. Remorse, I think,
is not regret. How new, as in full of chance, the nights here
still can seem to be,
if you keep your eyes closed. Here’s a lullaby:
“No more bondage, no triumph either, no more the bluing waves
of shame…”


(Today’s poem originally appeared in Ploughshares and appears here today with permission from the poet.)

Carl Phillips is the author of twelve books of poems, most recently Silverchest. He teaches at Washington University in St. Louis.

Editor’s Note: Carl Phillips is a master of the-line-that-blows-you-away. “You’re the kind of betrayal, understand, I’ve been waiting for, / all my life.” “Somewhere / abandon’s still just a word to be turned away from, as from a man / on fire” “Remorse, I think, / is not regret.” This poet speaks the truth, rewriting the world in a way we all wish we could. I, for one, am humbled.

Want to read more by and about Carl Phillips?
Poets.org
The Poetry Foundation
Q & A on Smartish Pace

NICOLE LOMANGINO

Tanabata

NICOLE LOMANGINO @STANFORD UNIVERSITY ART SPACE

by Anthony Torres

Now at Stanford University Art Space is the work of Nicole Lomangino, an artist whose personal translations and representations of geishas articulate a longstanding interest in Japanese art and myths.

The work seems deeply inspired by traditionalUkiyo-epaintings and woodblock prints of the Edo Period in Japan (late 1600’s-1800’s), which depict history, landscapes, theater, and pleasure quarters. The word ukiyo or “floating world” refers to impermanence and fleeting beauty.  The original subject(s) of ukiyo-e were activities and scenes from city life and the realms of entertainment — kabuki, courtesans, geisha — divorced from the world of the mundane. The prints were disseminated and affordable because they were mass-produced.

In translating her subjects — geishas — Lomangino has developed a strategy of blending figures painted with watercolor and gouache with a collage technique that utilizes handmade Yuzen papers to visually construct her subjects’ bodies, hair adornments, and kimonos, in a complex architectonic dance of textural patterns, form, and color.

In so doing, she creates works that depict solitary figures formed by reassembling and juxtaposing the painted images with the cut paper, so that the faces hover in a orchestrated sea of ebbs and flows that are seamlessly fused in a unitary whole.

In Tanabata, for example, a solitary figure floats against a cloudlike powder blue-grey background.  The figure’s face, left forearm, and hands emerge from a billowy mass of pictorially simulated fabric.  In her left hand, she holds an upraised streamer that appears to be blowing in the wind across the top portion of the image, above her head.

The patterns in the cut paper vary and include birds, which add to the allusion to in-flight travel or movement. This is reinforced by a cut streamer tied to the figure’s wrist, which similarly mimics the curvilinear flowing “fabric” overhead.

Here, the rendering of the geisha is anchored by the pale white face/head of the subject.  The face is crowned by her black hair, which is adorned with a curvilinear hair ornament above her forehead.  Below her chin and at the shoulders is the bulbous kimono-like garment formed from Yuzen paper that has been cut and pasted so that the edges demarcate and enclose the sections that constitute the folds of the “fabric” portions of the garment. 

The intersecting lines that delineate these sections serve as devices for the dynamism created by the careful arrangement of the compositional structure and juxtaposition of patterns in the paper, creating tension, movement, and depth within the picture plane.

As in much of the work, the figure occupies an autonomous space that is at once nebulous and self-contained, formed from a formal strategy and mode of expression that characterizes many of her works — the conjuring of traditions and images from the past to enunciate aesthetic concerns in the present.

Looking at these images, one finds it necessary to reflect on Lomangino’s intercultural identification with her subject and the historical sources condensed in the works, and to wonder how the aesthetic strategies she utilizes comment on a history of globalization and relate to her personal experience(s).

In complex way, her choice to rearticulate images associated with the Japanese Edo period speaks to histories of European colonization that disseminated aesthetic ideas through cultural dominance, and in so doing created contact sites of intercultural exposure, exchange, influence, and transformation; and also how those contact histories are mutually generative of a range of aesthetic translations. 

Perhaps more importantly, the work alludes to a personal aesthetic as being socially imbricated in the world, and is thus emblematic of the social character of art. By extension, it addresses the way people are formed through processes of acquiring, forming, and asserting subjectivities, and conversely, how personal identity is impacted by trans-cultural global realities.

This seems particularly relevant here, because these images speak to the idea that individuals and art works are relationally situated and constituted through cultures, people, and objects external to their being.

–Anthony Torres