1 poem & images
WoodsWork
Rasanblaj[i]
If…
I
choose to begin
from the ground up, literally:
roots, plants, gardens, plots of land[ii].
You ought to be able to live with
yourself, but not at your
neighbor’s expense.
I was on fire
I
choose to begin
from the ground up, literally:
roots, plants, gardens, plots of land.
No One Could
The herd animal is not
Save me but you his brother’s parasite
and pest.
I
choose to begin
from the ground up, literally:
roots, plants, gardens, plots of land.
Man, you have forgotten
that you too are an animal.[iii]
Strange what desire
Would make foolish
People do...[iv]
“Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?”[v]
“Are you doing Your work?[vi]
[i] Text excerpts and photographs from “Are you sure, sweetheart, that you want to be well?”
[ii] Mimi Sheller, 2012, Citizenship From Below
[iii] Carl Jung, 2009 [1957], The Red Book A Reader’s Edition.
[iv] Chris Issak, 1989, “Wicked Games.”
[v] Toni Cade Bambara, 1980, The Salt Eaters
[vi] Audre Lorde, all the time….
Dr. Gina Athena Ulysse is a professor of Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. With her creative practice of rasanblaj (gathering of ideas, things, people and spirits), her multidisciplinary art projects (texts, performance, photographs, and installations) on Black diasporic conditions seek to engage the visceral deeply embedded in the structural. Her work has been published in Feminist Studies, Journal of Haitian Studies, Gastronomica, KERB Journal of Landscape Architecture, Souls, Third Text, and Transition among other venues. ginaathenaulysse.com