SHAPING PRACTICE

Eshay Brantley: Ode to my Umi + Access

Eshay noted several access elements integrated within her fellowship exhibition and related programming. One particular offering available digitally is Ashe Jaafaru’s audio recording of Donte Collin’s Poem Love: Nocturn; a deconstructed American Sonnet in conversation with artist Annie Lee’s painting titled Blue Monday. The recording reflects Ashe’s performance during the opening of Ode to my Umi.

Donte Collins – Love Poem: Nocturn
A deconstructed American Sonnet in conversation with visual artist Annie Lee’s Blue Monday

Love Poem: Nocturn
A deconstructed American Sonnet in conversation with Annie Lee’s “Blue Monday”
 
Sleep is a harp
Rusting for touch.
 
All my dreams
Drained of music.
 
More than love,
I require cadence.
 
God is the rhythm
Braiding our laughter.
 
Even the moon
Is hot this June.
 
I felt its sweat
Melting each hour.
 
You deserve your own
Black Earth. Where
 
We sing our sorrows
Into shawls of light.
 
We trade our shawls
To harvest each joy.
 
The dead awaking
To warm our steps.
 
God is that field
Between our worry.
 
Midnight Kudzu
Reaching for Dandi.
 
I flee to you to
Color the Weeping.
 
My heart sighing.
To seeds in the wind.