Friday, May 14, 2021

Flower Paintings by Su Zi

Artist's note They are all painted plain aire, which means outside, and from live plants. The elephant flower was painted when I lived in New Orleans. Some of the others here in Florida—all from my garden. At one point of another, they have been exhibited.
Occasionally, one will sell. There are a few left for sale still.
A reddish yellow gladiola bloom stem is in the forefront of the image. The bottom flower is darker and wilted, but the flower above is vibrant and open. Two smaller flowers are above. The stem is two-tone green with grass-like leaves. The background is sepia. Composition is oil paint on board.
An elephant ear. Broad, textured leaves take up most of the left side of the picture. Below the leaves brown background. The flower is white and yellow, dipping and shaped a bit like a pea pod.
Brown and white background. A sunflower stands tall and open with dark yellow petals. The center has an orange outer circle, yellow inner, and green dots. There is one leaf on each side of the stem. The bottom of the sunflower looks like it has green roots in the shape of another leaf. The picture itself is framed. (Oil paint.)
Three purple flowers with brownish orange centers hang down. Angled, dark leaves hang down from the stems. The background is light with purple, yellow, and white streaked through. They are labeled as "echinacea".

Jennifer's note:  Su Zi is a visually-impaired artist.
~*~
Biography:  Su Zi is a poet/writer and artist/printmaker and edits, designs and constructs the eco-feminist poetry chapbook series Red Mare
Publications include poetry, essays, stories and reviews that date back to pre-cyber publishing, including when Exquisite Corpse was a vertical print publication, and a few editions of New American Writing. More recent publications include Red Fez, Alien Buddha and Thrice. A resident of the Ocala National Forest, with a dedicated commitment to providing a safe feeding respite for wild birds, and for a haphazard gardening practice that serves as a life model for all aspects of her work.

Monday, May 10, 2021

Cripendy Contest Winners for 2021

We had some stellar entries in our contest this year... and it's only the inaugural competition! Thank you all so much for making this a success.

First place:  "Blind Date" by Carol Farnsworth (felt/plush art)

Second place:  "Tide" by Ann Chiappetta (poem)

Third place:  "Dinosaur" by F.I. Goldhaber (poem)

Next month, each winner will have a post on the blog in order to highlight their work (with artist's note unless otherwise specified). Prizes will be sent to the winners by the end of May.

Thursday, May 6, 2021

Carrying my Father's Silence by Nnadi Samuel

how warm you chew your tongue
into disremembering the taste of a dialect.
grief, the calm to soften your teeth,
& sponge a weak phrase to its neat wall of pink.

this is how you kill a mother's worth:
sludged wrists crushed to calories,
lost from ceaseless count of meals by how much 
her darkness shortchanges you.
your lips ramming into each other.

you braid your head into a migraine,
& let the style eat you.

silence, like a mohawk,
stands at ease.
getting my attention is one tough chore,
you could break your lips,
& still not get the dry sound to pulse me.

all my fun sides staked to claims:
that I feigned my father's accent,
& sighs are how he made words look like sin.

I am sifting into this new world,
skipping my meals,
becoming what I eat when I starve things of my lips.

I now lust for days when noise grooms my stature,
tongue amplified with the thirst for a crazy accent— 
this dialect that should know me.
~*~
Biography:  Nnadi Samuel holds a B.A in English & Literature from the University of Benin. He is a phonics tutor suffering from long depression & speech disorder. Winner of the Canadian Open Drawer Contest 2020 & Pushcart nominee. He is the author of Dumb Mandate (forthcoming). He reads for U-Right Magazine. He tweets @Samuelsamba10. 

Thursday, April 29, 2021

Best "Performance" of Inclusion Goes to The Oscars

Crip Camp was nominated for an Oscar and, though it didn't win, it feels like things might change for the better... to some people. There were photos of the stars on the red carpet (with service dog)! It was a marvelous occurrence.

While it is amazing to witness (and there are subtle signs of our community breaking down barriers), Hollywood is still woefully ableist. Oscar bait with able-bodied and neurotypical folks "cripping up" is still prevalent. Our civil rights movement in the film industry is still being fought

A ramp was built to the stage for the first time. The academy never saw need of it before. No one using a wheeled mobility aid got close enough to the stage to even consider the possibility. Why the benefits of ramps aren't apparent to able-bodied folks is always a mystery to me, but ramps also serve as an unwritten "welcome sign" to our community, so...

Anthony Hopkins won an award (and is now the oldest man to do so) but wasn't allowed to use Zoom to attend the ceremony. A neurodivergent man in his 80s during the height of a pandemic isn't allowed to teleconference because... rules. Ableds seem to want "a return to normal" post-pandemic to include our continued exclusion.

Each bit of progress we make upwards is undone by another set of stairs. Will we be welcome at the top again next year, or will the ramp be as gone as our invitations?

Friday, April 23, 2021

Scrapheap Challenge by Kate Meyer-Currey

I wanted to be
A refuse refugee;
To throw my
Dismembered
Body parts
Of a life
Misconducted
In shame’s
Black bag
On a social scrapheap
That would prove
I was a castoff:
Too lazy and indifferent
To recycle my packaging
Into tidy categories
Rinsed out for the bin men;
But I missed collection day
Accidentally on repurpose:
It was upcycle or rot.
No bones about it
I’m no oil painting
Trash into treasure
Or priceless antique
In lockup storage
Brought to light
For millions on daytime TV
I won’t write myself off
As damaged goods
On life’s pavement.
I was built to last:
Time has worn me
Down and a little out
It’s softened those harsh edges
Through constant use,
Given a warmer patina
To my inlaid surface
My gold leaf still gleams true
I retain ornamental value:
I was once-loved:
It shows to discerning eyes
With a taste for niche
Or vintage artefacts;
Now I know my own worth
I’m content to take
My rough with my smooth:
I still have hidden compartments
No-one has discovered.

~*~
Biography:  Kate Meyer-Currey was born in 1969 and moved to Devon in 1973. A varied career in frontline settings has fuelled her interest in gritty urbanism, contrasted with a rural upbringing. Her ADHD also instils a sense of ‘other’ in her life and writing, whether folklore feminism or urban myth.

Publications: 

Chapbook County Lines (Dancing Girl Press, forthcoming 2021) 

Other poems include "Family Landscape: Colchester 1957" (Not Very Quiet, September 2020), "Invocation" (Whimsical Poet, February 2021), "Dulle Griet", "Scold’s Bridle", "Recconnaissance", (RavenCageZine, February 2021), "Stream: Timberscombe" (A River of Poems, March 2021) and "Not so starry night" (SheSpeaks, March 2021).

"Cailleach" (SageWoman, forthcoming) "Dregs" (Seinundwerden,forthcoming), "Gloves" (MacroMicroCosm, forthcoming), "Phases of the Moon" (Hags on Fire, forthcoming), "Anthem for the Contaminated" (TrainRiver, forthcoming), "Hilly Fields" (Pure Slush, forthcoming), "Scorpio rising" (Noctivagant Press, forthcoming), "Maman Brigitte" (Albany Poets, forthcoming). 

Thursday, April 15, 2021

The Witcher (Netflix) and Ableism

Disclaimers:

1. I've never read any of The Witcher books, and the only video game I played of the series was the third one.
2.  Spoilers and ableism abound.
~*~
I liked The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, even with what I thought were a couple of hints of ableism. The world is massive, magic flows, and there still might exist a happily ever after for old, jaded heroes. I put many hours into the video game, so I thought the show would be enjoyable. I wasn't prepared for Yennefer.

Yennefer is the disfigured and disabled daughter of a poor farmer. People around her are cruel to her, and her own stepfather sells her to a witch for a song, not caring what the witch plans to do with her. But then, Yen is taken to a school for possible magic users. 

Yennefer exists in the video games as an able-bodied, non-disfigured sorceress who is quite bitchy. I wasn't even sure the character from the game and the character in the show were the same at first. But, they are. In a world of magic, I suppose no one believes there is a reason to stay in an imperfect body.

I watched on, hoping with a sinking feeling that it would be at least handled well. Yennefer gets a semi-boyfriend and gains a friend among the mages. She learns, even though she seems to possess only slight ability in the realm of magic, she is quite talented. She begins to flourish.

As she steps into her power, she becomes unbearable. She finds herself believing she is too good for the man who likes her (maybe). She sacrifices her friend when she figures out she has true power but her friend does not. Yennefer goes to a mage and gives up her fertility so he can make her appear "normal" and uses her new appearance to help her weasel her way into a better job.

I'm not a fan of "cure" narratives. There are plenty of other backstories to give a character to explain their motivations. But, no matter how much I dislike the idea of a cure being shoved into stories, what I really couldn't stand was how they made Yen insufferable and implied it was her disability/disfigurement causing her personality "issues". I understand past treatment and trauma can inform choices, but I felt it was sloppy writing. She's basically a crip with a chip on her shoulder while no longer being disabled/disfigured.

Ableist tropes all in one magical package of bullsh*t.

Thursday, April 8, 2021

Insomnia; a Night of Reckoning by Robert Allen

Sleepless and hollow
I greet the dawn,
the sun burns hot in the hollow.
The day aches on until
sleepless I meet the night,
sleepless I meet the night,
head hollowed like open empty
palms,
a begging bowl, a dead balloon, a
broken heart.
~*~
Biography:  Robert Allen lives and loves with his family in northern California, where he writes poetry, takes long walks, and looks at birds.

Details at www.robertallenpoet.com