(Staff Submission)
Theme: Before, During and After
Artist Statement:
There are no greater themes in art and life than love and death. COVID-19 reminds us how timeless the Earth can be compared to human existence and how much direction and solace it can provide—if we just look and listen—while we wait.
The Professor’s New Clothes
He thinks he’s always been a regal soul
dressed by pages of golden works, a sort
of sartorial essence made up whole
in colorful yarns spun from language art:
stories of heroes and stories of rogues,
the noble breathing and the noble cold;
the finest garments draped in mantle robes
of eternal reigns—such wealth to behold.
Except today. He sits alone, seeing
with vacant eyes the monarch he has been
instead of his reality: a thing
In disembodied threads conveyed unseen.
Theme: Alone Together
Artist statement:
For those of us who see education as a communal act, teaching online during a pandemic, which already requires an extra layer of social distancing, can be a lonely and disconcerting experience. The physical presence of our own bodies among other human beings, as we convey the life of the mind, is essential. The absence of those bodies runs the risk of reducing all teaching and all minds to mere abstractions.
A Good Book
A fragrant letter hiding in a box.
A stable voice that listens as it talks.
A wrinkled face replete with worldly age.
A butterfly that causes such a rage.
A dog-eared friend abused in loving ways.
A secret host that hides her face for days.
A hallowed space that fills our empty hands.
A drop of rain that swells the barren lands.
A fine incision galling us to health.
A poverty that bares a truer wealth.
A ray of light that parts the cloudy skies.
A youthful lover proven full of lies.
A golden leaf that trails the season’s wend.
A winter storm that marks our common end.
Theme: Human Connection in a Virtual World
Artist statement:
If anything, COVID-19 has provided us with the opportunity to see the extraordinary in the ordinary again. And what better place to find that tangible synecdoche than on our own dusty bookshelves, where the real world and the world of possibility might come together in a new or newly forgotten artifact.
The Ring Keeper’s Vow
“The earth knows you, even when you are lost.”
–Robin Wall Kimmerer
Someday I’d like to grow
in place, where wildflowers show
their upturned faces new
year after year with you.
We’d lounge in shallow pools
of earthly shade—two fools
for life—and gaze at crowds
of wild lace. Like the clouds
between the sun and earth,
they need not sell their worth
or spend a better day.
This summer, hearts will stay
in fields that tap the veins
and dull the sharpest brains
until the sod is wood—
then keep those rings for good