October 29, 7 p.m.
Linda Kokenge & Sarah Riggs
at MOTR
Linda Kokenge & Sarah Riggs
at MOTR
LINDA KOKENGE is an introverted egomaniac with delusions of grandeur. A poet, a social worker and a shrink, Linda will be reading from her collection The Archer and The Scorpion in attempt to publicly process a particularly private type of existentialism. Her influences include Franz Kafka, Max Ritvo and the music of cocorosie. This will be her first featured reading.
* * * Three Poems I. Beloved, do not trust every spirit for many false prophets have gone out into the world. First Letter of Saint John: Chapter 4 An axiom unsubstantiated by some sort of perverted and cosmic Morse code Mapplethorpe maelstrom movement depicted through freckled constellation Wisdom originated in vintage porno magazines. I am the fool I am the jester I am the last woman standing. In another life I will be a man’s man A multinational maverick made through transforming women into chicken wings Relegation of breasts and thighs from sacred to spicy In another life I will be a prophet but in this one I am a whore. Trinket salesman peddle plastic flowers and fool’s gold Rhinestone women provocatively posed All glittery and shiny while Screaming and dying asking: If I sparkle, will you hear me? My Beloved, do not mistake exposure for intimacy Do not concede integrity to manufactured identity Do not compromise purity for inebriety Instead in the morning say a prayer to Saint Anthony praying that maybe just maybe what was lost will be found. II. I am no longer afraid of the dark; I know what lies within its shadows. softly violent, warm yet unrecognizable following the trickster through tunnels led by promises of salvation, atonement Oblivion. I remember innocence. A bright yellow canary guiding me during times when things became too dark, too intense I knew that if I could hear its song then I still existed and hope had reason enough to breath I can’t recall when my propensity for self-destruction first manifested though I know the moment when I began carving escape routes on surrounding roots and branches When my body became driftwood cast out amongst turbulent waters Whatever once was, was now lost Surrendered to the rhythm and pull of an unsympathetic moon Memories of the dark days often surface as tiny ships in glass bottles an armada contained within past tense formations an ever-present subtext rendering space just enough for distance between normalcy and my reality Sometimes I still struggle at crossroad moments out of fear of the path leading back to distorted perspective Where delusion has the power to shift focus from values to vices and I would ultimately find myself alone, whistling in the dark once again But, for whatever reason, something has changed within me embedded in my chest a compass now exists and though I am navigating new surroundings and though the walk is often challenging there are moments of bright white brilliance like when the heat of the sun kisses my skin and I remember what it’s like to be alive III. She said that you must now be a bird. Man reincarnate as Bird of Paradise Bright colors and funny figure Loneliness is no longer, my love you now dance a strange courtship divorced from mind and body. Brilliantly and wholly spirit a oneness which I witnessed your countless attempts to achieve Though tragically manifesting only deeper separation a fatal breakdown I watched you self-destruct and I had to walk away. There was a time when your home existed within me. My dear Prodigal Son, was your homecoming one of perfection? A warm void or an absence of nothingness? Did you meet your maker’s embrace knowing that your war is over and you need not suffer anymore? I have been seeking a sign in my morning chai paying attention to tea leaves before discarding and going on with the business of living. New mind, new body, new spirit a new synchronicity which will forever be without you. And maybe I will find laughter. The kind of laughter reminiscent of a bird on a dewy morning pregnant with hope and love ready to greet the day with its new creation. A declaration, a revolution the first time noticing within my reflection the most beautiful bouquet of flowers. Bright white lilies wrapped in gold satin each petal a message from Saint Gabriel proclaiming: I once was lost but now am found Once caged but now fly free. |
SARAH RIGGS is a writer and artist, born in New York where she is now based after having spent over a decade in Paris. Before directing Six Lives: A Cinepoem, she produced The Tangier 8 at the Cinémathèque de Tanger in Morocco, which was screened at the Berlin Film Festival and the Tate Modern Museum, among other international venues. She is the author of seven books of poetry in English, including The Nerve Epistle (forthcoming Roof Books, spring 2020/21). She is the author of the book of essays Word Sightings: Poetry and Visual Media in Stevens, Bishop, & O’Hara (Routledge, 2002), and has translated and co-translated six books of contemporary French poetry into English, including most recently Etel Adnan’s Time (Nightboat, 2019). She is the director of the international arts organization Tamaas (www.tamaas.org), which focuses on environmental arts activism. Sarah Riggs has taught in recent years at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn after years of teaching at the NYU and Columbia programs in Paris. Inspired by filming the dance of Stéphane Bouquet, choreographed by Mathilde Monnier, for her previous film Six Lives, Sarah is doing a residency on a Casablanca rooftop mixing film, dance and poetry with La Source du Lion and making a film about four New York choreographer dancers.
* * * from Etel Adnan’s Time, translated by Sarah Riggs XVIII In a parallel sleep I came back to a body and love, there where time never dared show itself And so I can say that madness sings in the morning in a setting of water and dream, its red coat worshipping the sun |
Launched by poets Mark Flanigan and Jim Palmarini in 2014, Word of Mouth was inspired by the late Cincinnati poet Aralee Strange. Poets of all stripes are welcome to show up, listen, and mouth off.
MOTR Pub, 1345 Main Street, Cincinnati
MOTR Pub, 1345 Main Street, Cincinnati