TINA BARRY – THE VIRGINIA PROJECT The following images and poems are part of a collaborative written word and visual art exhibition entitled The Virginia Project, which will be presented at The Wired Gallery in High Falls, New York, from 10/27/18-11/25/18. In 2014, when Tina Barry moved from Brooklyn to High Falls, she learned that the artist Marc Chagall and his partner Virginia Haggard had made a similar move to the town in 1946. After some research, Barry started writing prose poems in the voices of [Chagall’s lover Virginia] Haggard, and her five-year-old daughter Jean McNeil. Represented here are…
Author: Mom Egg Review
White Flannel Marc’s head blurs above mine. I pull my hips up, wrap my legs tight. Now he whimpers in his sleep. Marc, I say, shaking him. Marc. His eyes are in some bleak country when he slams his fist in my face. He’s awake now, rushing back to himself. He wants to explain. To tell me what horrors he’s relived. But I hold up my hand. Something has closed inside me. Later, while he snores, I dream of embroidering his face on white flannel. Careful black stitches edge the long nose. I color his lips vermillion. Two…
High Falls The real estate agent wore a fedora, smashed almost flat, a cartoon hat too small for his head. He advertised the quality of his coat with a label sewn near the cuff of one sleeve: 100 percent wool. Beneath it, a shirt stretched so far the buttons barely held; I could have rested my hand on the balloon of his belly. With the windows open, light poured in, a pure yellow Catskill’s light Marc would have loved. We drove from Wallkill, to Bethel, Warwick and Mt Hope. We drove to Kingston, Cottekill, Olive Bridge and Accord. None of…
Circus After the measles stopped scratching my teacher Mrs. Schwartz takes me to the Barnum and Bailey’s Circus She takes Me none of the other girls This is my first circus I am so tired because I couldn’t sleep Mrs. Schwartz drives and sings Frére Jacques and then we both sing Frére Jacques A woman drives next to us and smiles I move close to Mrs. Schwartz I want the woman to think I am Mrs. Schwartz’s daughter When we get there two clowns are smoking cigarettes outside One sees me and squeezes his big red nose Behind…
So I Came From the Sea and Sat Down Pretend I’m a slender whale, an odalisque along the shoreline. Stud one arm with stars. Let your eyes travel the full gleam of my tail. What do you carry? A line-drawing etched on ultramarine? A harmonica playing lilies? Unfurl Jean’s fingers. She offers a stack of wishes. In my palm, I hold a smaller hand. A branch of coral on the lifeline. Tina Barry So I Came From the Sea and Sat Down (after Tina Barry’s poem) 2018 Watercolor and casein on paper 30 5/8 x 37 5/8…
Daylilies If you were here and not resting as I imagine you in the milky light of your hotel room, we’d sit together while the children sleep and choose daylilies for the garden — Crimson Pirate, Fairy Wings, August Pioneer — hoping the flowers open early, so we’ll still be together to see them bloom. Tina Barry Wendy Hollender is a botanical artist, author, and instructor who leads workshops in varied locations. Hollender’s illustrations have been published extensively. She has exhibited in natural history museums and botanical institutes,…
Birth Bed of blood and bone. Him her you us. The great usurper who knit himself from me. Tina Barry Trish Classe Gianakis received her B.F.A. degree from Arizona State University, and her M.F.A. in computer art installation from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Trish’s work has been shown in numerous galleries, including the Broom Street Gallery, NYC. Trish’s graphic arts won the Golden Addy Award for Best Interactive Web Design.
Nocturne Your dreams settle over my sleep. A great smear of red. Bella. Sun singes my fingers when I touch. Onyx eyes and grim pressed lips. A tornado of birds circle. Her throat offers a thousand small wishes. Boots churning dust as the Poles threaten a rearranged world. A nun in white habit makes angels in the snow. Tina Barry I’m Clairvoyant When I Hold a Finger to My Ear I hear your call, brined in salt yet distinct. You challenge me to a…
Review by Lisa M. Hase-Jackson The poetry of Athena Kildegaard’s fifth book, Course, ranges from sparse to ample, vivid to subtle, and somber to lightly humorous. Leaning heavily toward the narrative, the collection’s apparent aim, to lead the reader through the underbrush of emotion inherent in human interaction and interference with the natural world, evolves into a contemplation on the life and death of the speaker’s mother. Interspersed with haiku-inspired observations, and drawing on a river’s course as metaphor, images of life cycles and natural law collude and connect the individual poems which make up this ninety-three page…
Review by Mindy Kronenberg I had become acquainted with L.B. Williams’ work for an earlier review in Mom Egg with her chapbook The Eighth Phrase, and learned how she deftly entwined place, rite of passage, angst, and ecstasy to create imagistic and memorable vignettes. It’s an attractive and curious little tome (a small square booklet of 16 poems with a bright, surrealistic cover) that catches one’s attention and opens into a much larger vista of ideas with each page. Her recent collection, In the Early Morning Calling, also presents as interestingly as it reads: the cover’s color and imagery seem…