how do you break out. [day 10]

Volunteer

Who can blame me for scathing tongue. The work happens in the dark. We joke about being one paycheck away from winning the lotto. Frenzied suppression. Whatever I can get away with. The television snowy from hypoglycemia when the ports shut down. From a distance our problems shove off the rails their blessed train. The work of giving her kids something to hang on to. We’re accused of standing too close. Here is a blanket to cocoon your feathered limbs. Odd horrors endless. I thought we could make another home. But my one body is here just to be counted. The work of disobeying. I can lend it out. 

Constructed with words from Kimberly Alidio, Ching-In Chen, Jai Arun Ravine, Pia C., Cathy Park Hong, bell hooks’ Wounds of Passion, and St. Faustina’s Wikipedia page. 

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Prompts

“If women in Iran are for­bid­den to sing solo or record music, then noth­ing stops them to per­form in silence. Tavako­lian lets them act out their dreams in front of her cam­era, and pro­vides them with the stage they so ardently seek. Her por­traits show these singers when they are at their most unpro­tected and vul­ner­a­ble as they descend into con­cen­tra­tion and focus on the music. At the same time there is some­thing pow­er­ful about them.”—From the blog Mrs. Deane 

“Listen” from Newsha Tavakolian on Vimeo.

Kimberly Alidio:   A prompt from a very prominent person whose name I’m dropping: Write about an encounter with another person from both perspectives, giving the other person twice the amount of space

Ching-In Chen:   The Joy of Books (via Iris Law)

Jai Arun Ravine:   ”Of course witnessing poverty was the first to be ticked off the list. Then I had to graduate to the more obscure stuff. Being in a riot was something I pursued with a truly obsessive zeal, along with being tear-gassed and hearing gunshots fired in anger.” - Alex Garland, from “The Beach” 

Pia C.:   ”Pen, I feel right at home in your ink doing a pirouette, stirring the cobwebs, leaving my signature on the window panes. Pen, how could I have ever feared you. You’re quite house-broken but it’s your wilderness I am in love with, I’ll have to get rid of you when you start being predictable, when you stop chasing dustdevils.” (Gloria Anzaldua, from “Speaking in tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers”)

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Housekeeping

Please post in the comments section of this blog entry with: 1) your writing in response to today’s writing(s) and 2) a prompt or question to share for tomorrow.

And if the comments are down, feel free to send your work to arkipelagirl [at] gmail.com, and I’ll post for you when the comments are fixed. 

Full info on the process and this project can be found at this page.