#articles & poetry

[i-am-theseeker]

Empty Space

There is an empty spaceA church upon a hillWhere souls of the drawingEach morning come to fill There is an empty silenceFound in the space thereWhere souls of the praisingFill with humble prayer There is an emptyingWill of acquiescenceWith grace of the fillingTheir presence with Presence There is an empty voidIn this world out thereWhere […]Empty Space

[mangus-khan-blog]

Java & Verse #6

One of my favorite forms of writing is poetry. For years I have been trying to figure why? Perhaps, in it’s many forms it represents the truth of us. The truth that is only told within the lines we write. There’s something majestic about poetry that can’t be explained in words no matter how hard we try. But at least we can do is highlight one of its many forms. Acrostic Poems Acrostic poems are…

[finishinglinepress]

NEW FROM FINISHING LINE PRESS: In Bloom by John Spiegel

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/in-bloom-by-john-spiegel/

John Spiegel received his MFA in #Poetry from Miami University. His poetry has been published in Garbanzo, Milk & Cake Press, Typehouse Literary Magazine, and others. He contributes poetry reviews to Fence Digital and nonfiction articles to Vine Leaves Literary Journal. He lives in Fairborn, Ohio. #parenthood

PRAISE FOR In Bloom by John Spiegel

John Spiegel’s debut collection, In Bloom, traverses the weeks before and the year immediately after becoming a new #father. These poems journey through the complicated mix of uncertainty, anxious anticipation, and wistful reverie as they move to accept a new reality. In reflective series “Notes to Self” the speaker wades through hopes and fears, questioning himself and the balance of #family #life. Yet even as he struggles and asks, “where have I put myself?” these tightly-woven poems reveal a man transformed by his experience, ready to embrace what fatherhood requires. In Bloom explores the very particular and intensely questioning time of new #parenthood with earnestness and sincerity.

–Laura Van Prooyen

In Bloom moves musings on kinship, #fatherhood, and what it means to grow up human. Intimate and moving, lighthearted and serious, it’s a book of connection and consideration, of nature and nurture: tender, marvelous, and meaningful.

–Hoa Nguyen, author of A Thousand Times You Lose Your Treasure

Please share/repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #read #poems #literature #poetry #book #parenthood

[mirandazhangardn632]

Week 9 - AI in photography

I might want to continue with using generative fill so I decided to conduct some research into AI and photography and find well renowned photographers who use it.

This article focuses on the development of AI technology and how it has and will affect photography. 'This issue of Edition One argues that artists engaged with AI prior to the recent boom can help to organise, reflect on, and think through the myriad ethical, social and cultural issues that AI systems raise. But looking towards artists in this way also requires looking towards the institutions and frameworks that platform, promote and engage with them, considering how and with what impact cultural output diffuses into its wider environment.'

'"Back to the advent of photography itself (when it was accused as the assassin of painting), through many technical and conceptual revolutions that have caused photography’s repeated death (spoiler: it is always reliably resuscitated), and into the present paradox." Additionally, photography was known as 'the assassin of painting'. However, painting is still used as a medium of art and even as documentation such as in courtroom drawings and police sketches. Technology always develops but older mediums remain. I believe that as photography has reduced the use of painting, generative AI will reduce the use of traditional photography but will not kill it.

As we have learned in the previous assignment, photography has always been viewed as a medium of truth as it captured light and was thought to not be manipulatable. "The recent shift in discourse positions generative images as ‘deceptive’ and ‘verifiable photography’ as ‘truth’. ‘Truth’ has never been an appropriate descriptor for the photographic condition, and if we think instead of the demonstrable potential of photography to be speculative, then such impossibilities are rendered irrelevant anyway."

The V&A is one of the first museums to recognise and exhibit photography. It is now one of the first to exhibit generated imagery. "To engage, then, with contemporary artists shaping the future of photographic practice is simply to continue a long and effective V&A tradition of looking to contemporary cultural production to work through new ways of making." The belief of V&A is that by engaging with new technologies, the future of art is developed. This is true because new technologies inspire many art movements, which are disliked at the beginning and are feared to kill old forms of art.

"The Zizi Show (2020) is a deepfake drag cabaret, a virtual online stage hosting a groundbreaking new show with a twist. It features acts that have been constructed using deepfake technology, learning how to do drag by watching a diverse group of human performers. The Zizi Show dissects one of the dominant myths about AI, the notion that 'an AI' is a thing we might mistake for a person."

Elewes had photographed and videoed real drag performers to create the dataset the algorithm was trained on. However, the big problem with generative AI at the moment is stolen identity. Most of the images AI is trained on are not acquired with the owner's permission. This leads to a massive ethical problem for users of generative AI.

This project pushes the boundaries of cabaret performance by allowing viewers to interact by selecting the performer and the song they perform. Deepfake/AI was intentionally used as a commentary on how AI is biased towards generating heteronormative results. Drag is a medium used in a similar way, to challenge norms.

"As an artist, I am so interested in when these systems break down. I think there's a lot of poetry in seeing these algorithms not do what they're originally intended to do." This is what Jake Elewes says in his video where he explains the ideas behind the project. I find it interesting that he wants the algorithm to fail which is the opposite of what most people who are interested in AI are doing. I see many videos online of janky, uncanny animation created by AI, which I was reminded of when I saw this project. Many people see these videos as a sign of hope, that AI is not 'taking over the world' because it is producing obviously false results.

I want to explore a similar idea of AI breaking down in images or creating unnatural results as I feel it actually is more natural, like not knowing exactly how a painting will turn out because a brush cannot be perfectly controlled. To me, it is more exciting than realism because of the uncertainty of the results.

[bills-bible-basics]

JUST IGNORE THIS GRAPHIC -- a poem by Bill Kochman Visit https://www.billkochman.com/Poetry/ to see more. #Christian #Poetry #Poem To see other poems related to this one, go to: https://www.billkochman.com/Poetry/index.html#Miscellaneous-Poems If you don't understand this poem, don't worry about it. It is really just a bit of humor for other webmasters who likewise found it necessary to change some -- actually, a lot -- of their HTML code in order to satisfy Google's specifications for AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages. If you are interested in the actual technical specs regarding why I had to make this size change to my poetry graphics, please go here: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/articles#type_definitions https://www.billkochman.com/Blog/index.php/just-ignore-this-graphic-a-poem-by-bill-kochman/?feed_id=204726&JUST%20IGNORE%20THIS%20GRAPHIC%20--%20a%20poem%20by%20Bill%20Kochman

[nebularsmusic]

MY WORKS:

My Twitter: (N S 🔴) https://twitter.com/nebularsmusic

Hi :)

I'm Nebular S, currently a music producer studying music production and film composition at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music (SHCM) in China🇨🇳. I have produced ambient music, techno, deep house, drum & bass, UK Garage and other experimental genres, as well as some bigger collaboration projects, including original scores for a puppet show, and an experimental short film that premiered at Southbank Centre in London. I'm currently in the process of another visual art project which will be premiered in August :) I share an equal passion for men's and women's football/soccer. Manchester United 1st, Bayern Munich 2nd, and occasionally watch Napoli, Celtic and Inter Milan. Local team: Shanghai Port. A huge enthusiast for Ona Batlle and Sydney Lohmann :)

[suvarnarekha]

Humans and birds are a different matter. Yet they, too, share a lot of DNA -- 65 percent

Humans and dogs share 84 percent of their DNA.

Humans and mice share nearly 90 percent of human DNA.

The genetic DNA similarity between pigs and human beings is 98%

Cats are more like us than you'd think. A 2007 study found that about 90 per cent of the genes in the Abyssinian domestic cat are similar to humans.

Domesticated cattle [ Cows and more ] share about 80 per cent of their genes with humans, according to a

2009 report in the journal Science.

An article from national geographic says, how a quarter of cow genome comes from snakes.

Even bananas share 60 percent of human DNA.

https://thednatests.com/how-much-dna-do-humans-share-with-other-animals/

https://api.nationalgeographic.com/distribution/public/amp/science/article/how-a-quarter-of-the-cow-genome-came-from-snakes

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/human-dna-share-cats-cattle-mice-same-genetics-code-a8292111.html?amp

https://education.seattlepi.com/animals-share-human-dna-sequences-6693.html

I think in Sanskrit, leaf means ‘prana’ which is the breath or the life and cows are generally regarded as the source of creation also ‘soul’ and pigs can be seen as Varaha in a way and snakes are ancestors in a lot of cultures.

Cats are so feminine and dogs are amazing.

They share so much of our emotions as well as DNA.

Logically, ethically, you really don’t think it would mess up the root of everything?

Eating animals is certainly messing things up!

They share so much of our emotions as well as DNA.

Logically, ethically, you really don’t think it would mess up the root of everything?

Okay I am not sure I get your point but here we go. I myself am not a proper vegan so I therefore have no right to shame people consuming whatever they desire. Logically, with the facts you stated it kind of rounds up to an emotional understanding of whether we should consume animals or not. 

People might argue that humans are omnivores and hence can eat both plants and animals. Herein the counter argument can be that we, homo sapiens, actually have a choice of eating either plants or animals. The ones who choose to slaughter lives of the latter are hereby, immoral and unethical. 

Now one might counter by saying that its about being a part of the good old food chain (holistically, food web). Humans have evolved from a period where initially hunter-gathering were the sole options of obtaining food, and that later we started cultivating food of their own rather than depending on hunting. So looking at evolution, its natural to have a meat-centric diet. They’d even add the fact that a lot of the planet’s land mass is not arable. There, animals are a proficient way to generate eatable food from.

I would have said do whatever you want just don’t be a hypocrite about it. But everything has flaws, nuances, variations, distinctions etc. 

This might come handy here, but then again- well, better not create a vicious cycle now. 

aight i need to lighten this atmosphere (sorry not sorry)

dear non gentle people,

we present to you ✨deoxyribo nuclic acid stuff✨

but no seriously the fact that i share a fourth of dna with a flower william wordsworth romanticized in his poetry is actually groovy as heck

also why is even the human genome "made up of bits of DNA that have copied themselves and jumped around" like is anything original left in this world or what smh

Cats are so feminine and dogs are amazing.

i don't even know why but i do not find this cute because

i am scared of every living vertebrae containing two chambered heart/three chambered/four chambered heart

that's about it istg it is not funny at all especially with frogs and creepy reptiles frogging around in this rainy-painy season 

...not very good with endings, am i? :/

[michaels-blackhat]

So You’re Feeling White Guilt and You Don’t Know What To Do

I’m not going to rehash the most recent Roswell New Mexico fandom news. I’m not going to rehash any of the difficult and necessary conversations surrounding race and racism that have been happening over the last week. They are important, they shine an important light on fandom racism, and they have caused many to reflect on their own unconscious bias and how it has manifested itself in fandom. That’s important. That is the constant work of an ally: to reflect on your bias and your actions and take steps to inform yourself and do better. As participants in a racist society and a culture that tries to say that racism is only an overt, obvious thing, we must always take the time to listen to others and change our own behavior.

This post isn’t necessarily about that either. It’s about how you can do other, small things, for yourself to help a community and individuals who are continuously mistreated, whose suffering is continuously erased, and whose culture is continuously stolen. Political involvement is always an option, but it’s also not always possible. I know for myself, I work two jobs that leave me with 14 hours days multiple times a week, and only one day off a week to relax, do household chores, and prepare for my grad school classes. I can exercise my right to vote, right to assembly, etc. but sometimes doing more isn’t a viable option.

So what else can I do?

Below I have accumulated links to different relief funds, bail funds for protesters, language programs, native artist collectives and stores, musicians, and conservation project.. Some of the links will take you to a larger project that you can explore. Some of the links will be for direct donations. This is not exhaustive. This is limited to what I’m able to find and authenticate to the best of my ability. But I wanted to put this out into the world, as an example of different ways you can support people, cultures, and communities. I invite anyone to add on to the list, particularly people who are Native American. 

Special thanks to @jocarthage​ for being an amazing resource and adding to my already long list. And @litwitlady​ for the bookstore link. Additionally, I was writing this and realized how long this got, so I started limiting to two or three links per area. Please, add on.

Relief Funds:

An article from Navajo Times that highlights different Coronavirus relief funds, including the Navajo Department of Health, John Hopkins Center for American Indian Health, relief for families and children, and Food Baskets for Elderly.

https://navajotimes.com/coronavirus-updates/relief-for-coronavirus/

Reply with recommendations

Bail Fund:

A thread on the O’odham land & water protectors: https://twitter.com/LaikenJordahl/status/1315707808470503427?s=20

And the bail fund: https://t.co/yzyDnEi0x6?amp=1

Generally, the National Bail Fund Network’s twitter page is a good place to go to keep up about bail funds for protesters for many leftist causes. They also help with immigration detention and the cause to end money bail in general. https://twitter.com/bailfundnetwork?lang=en

Reply with recommendations

Language Programs:

https://www.firstnations.org/projects/native-language-immersion-initiative/ : The Native Language Immersion Initiative aims to build the capacity of and directly support Native American language-immersion and culture-retention programs. They work with the National Endowment for the Humanities, along with support from the Lannan Foundation, Kalliopeia Foundation and the NoVo Foundation. The linked website has the list of grantees from the previous years, so you can go and explore the different language programs that have benefitted from the initiative. The NLII aims to support the cultural and linguistic preservation of all Indigenous Americans, including Native Alaskan and Native Hawaiian cultures.

The website also allows you to explore their programs, learn more about topics such as environmental justice within native communities, and donate directly.

Duolinguo has short courses in both Navajo and Hawai‘i. They’re not perfect, but they’re a good starting point. Spending some time getting used to the sounds and cadences can be really grounding in the realities of the language and grammar (and if everyone who read our fics downloaded it, it would give Duolingo a strong indicator of interest in these languages, which might encourage them to invest in making them full courses).

Reply with recommendations

Art & Clothing & Holiday Presents:

Art and clothing are grouped together, as a lot of the websites feature both.

Beyond Buckskin: https://shop.beyondbuckskin.com/

A shop/collective started by a member of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribe. They have a variety of products and you can learn more about their individual artist. They also have events, news, and a lot of cool things to explore on their website. 

+their buy native list: 

http://www.beyondbuckskin.com/p/buy-native.html

b.Yellowtail: https://byellowtail.com/pages/about-us

The clothes are designed by Bethany Yellowtail, a Northern Cheyenne & Crow fashion designer. The art and jewelry are made by hand by a collective of Native Americans, First Nations, and Indigenous creatures throughout North America.

SheNative: https://www.shenative.com/

A shop that primarily focuses on leatherwork, but does have other products as well. The aim of the company is to empower Indigenous women, so Idigenous women work on all levels of the manufacturing of the products. Additionally, they donate at least 10% of profits towards causes and charities that aim specifically to help Indigenous women.

Etkie: https://etkie.com/

This collective of Native American artists all hail from New Mexico. They specialize in beaded cuffs, all of which are gorgeous. Personal note, I very much want the Dawn Glass Cuff.

There are a lot of people who sell Native American art who are not, in fact, Native American people. Here are some sources:

The Indian Pueblo Store is owned and operated by New Mexico’s 19 Pueblo tribes. Find our physical location at the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque https://www.indianpueblostore.com

The bookstore in the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian has one of the best collections of books about Native American life, by Native American authors, anywhere we’ve found (if you become a member for $25 a year, you get their excellent quarterly magazine) https://americanindian.si.edu/store

Weirdly for a museum named for a man famous for playing a white cowboy in American movies, the Gene Autry museum in Los Angeles has one of the other really good collections of books by Native American authors on modern Native American life, as well as historical books: https://shop.theautry.org/collections/books

I haven’t been, but the Heard Museum gets recommended a lot and their shop has a lot of authentic Native American pieces: https://www.heardmuseumshop.com/

Birchbark Native Arts seems to have an extensive collection: https://www.birchbarknativearts.com and is associated with the bookstore mentioned below

Note from JoCarthage: In 2016 I drove to all 58 counties in California and started my collection of books on Native American tribes living and working in California, both as research for what I thought might be a book and because I was curious. A lot of the books I found are not on Amazon, you can only buy them in reservation book stores or National Park bookstores or little county museum bookstores. When the world opens back up again, that is a good process I have found for building my own understandings. 

It’s not a perfect system, but when you’re shopping, look for the term “Authentic Native American artworks” and a seal like this one; here is a longer guide to buying Native American art:

Reply with recommendations

Music:

Spotify & website links are provided. This is also limited to what I know and already listen to.

A Tribe Called Red: Website: http://atribecalledred.com/ | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2jlWF9ltd8UtoaqW0PxY4z

Mary Youngblood: Website: http://www.maryyoungblood.com/ | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0pRrf0i6X4uUIdzYrA2mDz

Buffy Sainte-Marie: Website http://buffysainte-marie.com/ | Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5exO2eW84QucBhrRhcK76x

[Video: A Tribe Called Red’s “Burn Your Village to the Ground”]

Books:

Based on the theory that the best information is closest to the source, all of the books below are written by Native American authors; the bookshops are owned by Native America booksellers. 

Bookshops:

Birchbark Books, a bookshop in Minneapolis: https://birchbarkbooks.com/ They also have art, jewelry, and community events. When available, the links for the books below are provided through the store’s website.

Book Recommendations:

Nonfiction and hilarious: Custer Died for Your Sins, by Vine Deloria Jr (Standing Rock Sioux): https://birchbarkbooks.com/all-online-titles/custer-died-for-your-sins

Poetry: New Poets of Native Nations, edited by Heid E. Erdrich (Ojibwe): https://birchbarkbooks.com/all-online-titles/new-poets-of-native-nations

Novel (murder mystery): Chenoo, by Joseph Bruchac (Abenaki): https://www.oupress.com/books/14415530/chenoo

Poetry: When the Light of the World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, edited by US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo (Muscogee Nation): https://birchbarkbooks.com/CatalogueRetrieve.aspx?ProductID=9713772&A=SearchResult&SearchID=11528255&ObjectID=9713772&ObjectType=27

Art book: First American Art, Edited by Bruce Bernstein and Gerald McMaster (Plains Cree and member of the Siksika Nation) https://americanindian.si.edu/store/books-and-products#1845

(The Mitsitam Cafe Cookbook: Recipes from the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian by Richard Hetzler (Not a Native American person but the recipes reflect a huge range of modern Native American recipes and are worth cooking through ) https://birchbarkbooks.com/CatalogueRetrieve.aspx?ProductID=9685880&A=SearchResult&SearchID=11528257&ObjectID=9685880&ObjectType=27)

Here is a selection of children’s books, YA, memoir and biography, and Native American fiction and poetry, Native studies, and Native language

Reply with recommendations

Diné and other Native American actors’ accounts to follow:

Why include fun social media stuff: because we’re humans and we like nice things. It’s very hard to keep learning about something that challenges our whiteness and privileges if everything we read and consume is painful and grim. It also fundamentally limits the stories we consume about modern Native American lives if all we do is wallow. So read good poetry, cook recipes that are shared freely, follow pretty actors on Instagram. When Jo went through her house to find the above book recommendations, 4 of them were on her Native American section, one in her poetry section, and one in her cookbook section. Native American stories and food and life are part of modern American life and integrated them into your bookshelves and menus and IG scrolling is a good way to stay aware and learn more osmotically.

Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs (kanien’kehá:ka from ⁣⁣⁣ kahnawà:ke mohawk territory⁣⁣⁣) https://www.instagram.com/kdeveryjacobs/?hl=en

Tatanka Means https://www.instagram.com/tatankameans/?hl=en

Jay Tavare https://www.instagram.com/jaytavare/?hl=en

Forrest Goodluck seems to not be active on social media, but he’s worth keeping an eye out for https://twitter.com/forrestgoodluck?lang=en

Check out more here, from pocfansmatter https://pocfansmatter.tumblr.com/post/632180141361119232/my-favorite-native-american-men

Reply with recommendations

News Sources:

Note: none of these are perfect. They all have their own biases, foci, and weirdnesses. But if you subscribe by email to a few of them, you’ll get a pretty good idea of what issues are important, generally.

Native America Calling: https://www.nativeamericacalling.com/

Navajo Times: https://navajotimes.com/

Indian Country Today: https://indiancountrytoday.com/

Reply with recommendations

Conservation:

A petition to close Mt Rushmore and to return public lands in the Black Hills to the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires of Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nations). 

https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/petition-to-close-mt-rushmore-and-return-all-public-lands-in-the-black-hills-to-the-oceti-sakowin

From the site: “Standing in solidarity with our ancestors, families, our allies, and the Oceti Sakowin (Seven Council Fires of Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nations), we are calling on Director Bernhardt and Representative Deb Haaland to close Mt. Rushmore and return all Public lands in the Black Hills to the Oceti Sakowin as negotiated in the 1868 Treaty of Ft. Laramie, as Indigenous treaties are the supreme law of the land.”

The Kumeyaay people are currently protesting against the illegal destruction of their sacred lands to build the border wall. You can keep up with their work and support them directly through their twitter account.

https://twitter.com/kumeyaayprotest?lang=en

The Native American Land Conservancy aims to reacquire Native American land, particularly in Southern California, to preserve and protect sacred sites and areas. 

The group has a mix of board members from a variety of tribes, along with members who are not affiliated with a tribe but have a focus and background in environmental conservation.

Reply with recommendations

Thank you for sticking with us through this whole list. It’s long, yes, but it does not even begin to show even a small percentage of places and artists you can support.

And as for what to do about your white guilt? Live with it. It’s not going to help anyone if you express your guilt continuously. It’s not going to help anyone if you push it aside. Live with it. We benefit from a racist system and we should not forget it. Do what you can to help others, lend your voice in support of others. And for fuck’s sake remember that it’s not about us.

[infactforgetthepark]

[Free Audiobooks] Poemsia by Lang Leav & This Is What I Know About Art by Kimberly Drew [YA Poet Coming of Age Novel & Art Activist Memoir]

AudioFile Magazine's annual SYNC Summer of Listening program encouraging teen literacy by offering audiobooks in weekly themed pairings continues for another week, free for a limited time courtesy of the magazine and participating publishers.

This week's selections, available to claim from Thursday, June 17th through Wednesday, June 23rd, have a theme of “Listening to Art”, and a secondary theme of social media.

Poemsia: A Novel by award-winning New Zealand poet and novelist Lang Leav, read by Saskia Maarleveld, from Listening Library. The story is YA coming of age novel with themes of friendship and following one's dreams, starring an aspiring teen who finds herself touring the contemporary poetry scene during a publicity tour in New York when she suddenly becomes a social media star, and the challenges she faces in learning who and what are for real in the competitive publishing world.

This Is What I Know About Art by art curator Kimberly Drew, read by the author herself, from Listening Library. This is part of the “Pocket Change Collective” series of guides presenting ideas about art and activism for a younger audience, this one a quasi-memoir drawing upon the author's personal experience as she traces her path from childhood to art historian to creator of an innovative blog highlighting contemporary black art to social media manager for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the importance of supporting public access to the arts for all.

Offered free through Wednesday, June 23rd (expires just before midnight Eastern Time), via the Overdrive Sora app for iOS & Android devices (requires account signup with valid email address, follow the instructions on AudioFile Magazine's dedicated promo page to register for access and claim your books in the app every week). You'll be able to keep them indefinitely in your account once you click “Borrow” on the featured book's page (right hand side under the book cover icon) and redownload at any time.

NB: if you later need to free up space on your device, DO NOT use “Return” which will remove your access entirely and prevent you from redownloading. Follow the procedure to delete ONLY the stored downloaded files (skip the actual streaming step) in this Sora Help article.If the “Explore” page isn't showing the weekly features properly, search for the books by title in the app once switched to the AudiobookSYNC collection. Apparently the Sora app may need to be reinstalled and logged back into if you're encountering a bug (see Twitter announcement for details).

[riversartblog]

Shirin Neshat, political photographer

Shirin Neshat was born in 1957 in Qazvin, Iran. Neshat describes the Iranian culture she grew up in as “deeply rooted in poetry and mysticism, where beauty means a heightened sense of emotions and spirituality” (Neshat, 2021). She described it as the way Iranians cope with the horridness of tyranny (Neshat, 2021).

Neshat left her home country in 1974 to pursue a BA from the University of California at Berkeley. The Iranian Revolution of 1979 did not allow her to return to her homeland for nearly 20 years (The Guggenheim museums and foundation 2021).

After graduating in 1983, Neshat moved to New York. While there she discontinued making art, even though it is what she majored in college. In 1993, Neshat took her first trip back to Iran since she was 17 years old, this is the trip that sparked her art career (The Guggenheim museums and foundation 2021).

She began working with photography and produced one of her first photographic series, Woman of Allah, 1993-97. This series established the main aspect of her work: combining images of women and religious text. Today she still creates photography, installation art, film and videos (The Guggenheim museums and foundation 2021).

Neshat is a contemporary artist. Contemporary art is created in a globally connected, culturally diverse and technologically advanced world (Contemporary art - google arts & culture 2021).

Neshat’s work stands out because of the emotion and themes she explores. Her work talks about the opposition of males and females in Islam culture and Western cultures. Her work heavily focuses on those themes as well as oppression and political injustice (Neshat, 2021).

As Neshat explained at an exhibition hosted by Art 19, “I don’t consider myself an activist I believe my art regardless of its nature, is an expression of protest, and a cry for humanity” (Shirin Neshat 2020).

Sources

The Guggenheim museums and foundation. (2021). Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/shirin-neshat

Marsh, A. (2021, March 03). The 20 female artists you need to know. Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/art-books-music/g7916/best-female-artists/

Neshat, S. (2021, February 15). Shirin Neshat on TELLING complex stories through art. Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://www.cnn.com/style/article/shirin-neshat-personal-essay-art/index.html

Contemporary art - google arts & culture. (2021). Retrieved April 10, 2021, from https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/contemporary-art/m0h0vk?hl=en

Shirin Neshat. (2020). Retrieved April 11, 2021, from https://www.art-19.com/shirin-neshat

[lifeinpoetry]

Are there any options for me if I wanted good quality poems but I don't have the money to subscribe to lit mags?

I’m not sure what you mean by good quality since that is subjective but here’s a list of online lit mags and some pay lit mags with free online content. Also, some poem of the day/week sites & some big sites that post work from the books of contemporary poets and poetry from lit mags.

Lit Magazines/Journals

The Felt

The Offing

Winter Tangerine

The Adroit Journal

BOAAT

Black Warrior Review

DIAGRAM

ANMLY

Tinderbox

Auburn Avenue

Asian American Writers’ Workshop

The Rumpus

Cosmonauts Avenue

wildness

Triangle House

Poetry Northwest

SWWIM

The American Poetry Review

The Baffler

AMP

Blood Orange Review

Glass: A Journal of Poetry

Figure 1

The Puritan

Guernica

Nat. Brut

Big Other

Blackbird

The Pinch Journal

Four Way Review

Scoundrel Time

Lunch Ticket

Thrush

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tenderness lit

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Poem of the Day

Love’s Executive Order

[revolutionoftenderness]

“People are fed by the Food Industry, which pays no attention to health and are treated by the Health Industry which pays no attention to food.”

—Wendell Berry

[Campbell's Soup Edition II , 1969 - Andy Warhol]

• Warhol’s first works featuring the supermarket staple, Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962), debuted at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962. All 32 canvases in the series feature the same cylindrical red-and-white can—the only thing that changes across the works is the name of the flavor on the label: “BEEF,” “MINESTRONE,” “TOMATO.” The artist relies on the text to convey the cans’ specific contents and to create the association in viewers’ minds of a particular flavor. Yet Warhol’s work doesn’t actually depict the food, but the branded containers in which the soup arrives to the consumer. It’s 32 promises of a meal, but never the meal itself. More: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-lichtenstein-thiebaud-pop-artists-obsessed-food/amp

• Poet, novelist, and environmentalist Wendell Berry lives in Port Royal, Kentucky near his birthplace, where he has maintained a farm for over 40 years. Mistrustful of technology, he holds deep reverence for the land and is a staunch defender of agrarian values. He is the author of over 50 books of poetry, fiction, and essays. His poetry celebrates the holiness of life and everyday miracles often taken for granted. More: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wendell-berry

[halberdierminister]

July Monthly Goals Check-In

1. Write 250 Words Each Day Well, I started out very faithful to this. But sometime around the middle of the month, I got pretty choppy. I honestly don't know exactly how many days I skipped. I'm gonna try to write a fair amount today when I can and hope that it is enough to make up for it. Which is fine. It has been an otherwise very productive month in many other ways, so I cannot be too upset about it. I may start running a wordpress blog with a friend of mine, and if I do that may keep me more on track with these.. We shall see. We shall see.

2. Read 55 Books This Year I finished reading 55 books in May! Last month I read 10 more books. THIS month, however… I read 31 books. That brings me to a total of 97 books read for the year!!! A lot of them have been VERY short books. Lots of poetry collections, manga volumes, graphic novels, etc etc etc. But not exclusively!! I was hoping to get to 100 books by the time I wrote this but the last couple days, I have not been able to make the magic happen. But that's fine! That's TOTALLY FINE. This will be a very significant get, but I have months to get over that hump. By the time you hear from me on this goals check-in next month, I will undoubtedly be decently well over 100 books, and I can talk about why that personally feels so good then!

3. Get A Full Time Job I did not get a full time job this month. BUT. I applied to 38 full time jobs. Got a bunch of rejections. HOWEVER, I have scheduled EXACTLY ONE JOB INTERVIEW so far so that is good news! And that would be a VERY good job if I were to get it! Some of these jobs are actually pretty exciting things and I feel confident for the first time in a while that I might actually find a good job IN MY CAREER PLAN!!!! Also I almost lost my part time job but the library director was able to convince the village to let me stay on as a substitute, and it has paid off surprisingly well. I've been working two to three shifts a week on that, which is more than any of us expected. So I guess what I'm saying is I am making good progress again and I hope I can have something positive to report by the time I'm thirty. Eugh.

4. Move Out Speaking of being almost thirty. I really do not want to be here. If I get the job I interview for, I would be able to move in with my friends in Milwaukee just about as soon as possible. So that is good news. Every day it gets more tempting to just say "screw it" and live down there. But that won't help me find a job. And the job really is the important thing.

5. Drink Less Soda I mean yeah. Occasionally, I drink-a the soda. But not too much. I am good at drinking less soda than I did last year or the years before that. That's because I would have several sodas each day, to the point where it worried some of the people I know.

6. Get Something Published Just found out that I'm getting something else published today! So that is one new poem published this month! I also had my fic in the Lalonde Zine come out, but it turns out that the Lalonde Zine was more of a shared Google Drive folder than an actual zine. Maybe I should offer to compile the zine into one document? I should do that. That would be a good thing to do and it would give me a lot of experience with doing that, something I haven't really done in a while. So the practice would do me good! And then I would feel better saying that I got published there too. But yes so besides the Lalonde fic, I have had two poems published in zines, one poem published in an online literary journal, and one fic published in an online fanzine this year! If you include the articles I wrote for school newspapers, I have gotten at least one thing published every year for the past fifteen years. If you don't count the articles (or the Lalonde fic yet), I have had 30 pieces of fiction and poetry published since 2005! That's pretty neat! I want even more though!!!!!! I found a publisher's website that accepts unsolicited manuscripts. I'm going to try to put together an honest to god actual collection of my poetry, one bigger than either of the two digital chapbooks I have made. I have a friend who is a professional editor -- not of poetry, mind you, but I might be able to convince her to give it a shot -- and I would honestly hire her at full price to take a look at it. I actually will need to seek a lot of feedback from a lot of people, so if you want to read a document full of a bunch of my poetry, lemme know and I will show you what I've got when I've got something.

7. Finish Writing A Legitimate Businessman Finished in April! No new news. But just because I completed this goal doesn't mean that is the end of it! I do still have the sequel to work on, even though I haven't done any of that this month. And one of these days I am going to get around to sitting down with the printed copy and a pen and editing the shit out of it so that I can write draft #2! I think I'll probably throw draft #2 up on wattpad (why not?? I've been curious about that website and know absolutely nothing about it) and maybe I'll make a nice looking e-book out of it that I can distribute on noisetrade or itchio or something! I wonder if I could get it printed on demand or something. Obviously not for profit. But like, maybe I have friends I want to send a nice printed copy to.

8. Write More The Revelation of Takaya According to Jin Finished in Februrary! No new news. A friend of mine has offered to bind a copy of it when he has access to the materials, and I think that'd be dope as hell. I ought to work on compiling it into a nice document. I don't know if that's what he would need. He would probably want to do that work himself. Sometimes I think about the concept of making an illustration for it? I don't know. I can't draw. But I might not need to draw for the thing I have in mind. Really I should be consulting with him on that. Ah well. Either way, I hope that ends up happening. That would be so friggin cool.

MINOR GOALS

9. Finish Playthroughs Of 1. The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild: Finished in January! 2. Persona 1 Main Quest Good Ending: I didn't do anything on this whooooops. Getting into the second half of the year without once having touched it. I ought to get back to this. 3. Pokemon Sword: Finished in March! 4. Pokemon Let's Go Eevee: Finished in February and March! 5. Persona Q2: I have finished the fourth dungeon and gotten to The Twist!!! It's weak. This really is the kids' version of a Persona game. Minus like… the fact that it's still rated M for partial nudity. There was exactly one moment of horror and even that was like… just a bit scarier than The Nightmare Before Christmas. But I did some of the side quests and those are actually decently fun. So I have the final dungeon left. I just wanna sort of power through this. I'll worry about completion when I do new game plus, whenever that might be.

10. Record More Ukulele Videos I did not do this. I want a new microphone. These are not inherently related things, as I do have a microphone already. I have everything I need to do this. I just haven't done this. And I would like a new microphone. Also, an amp for the uke would be nice. I should text my old coworker, see if he still has one to sell.

11. Record Let's Plays Neither did I do this. How could I? My parents think video gaming is the Devil's Lettuce. And they are always home. They would notice if they heard me talking to my computer. And that is assuming that I had something I could play on my computer that anyone would want to watch. I need a better computer. A gaming computer. An editing computer. I'm lucky that these are the same thing.

12. Duolingo? I was SUPER gung ho in the end of June and the beginning of July, but before too long I petered out. I've used a couple streak freezes and have really been doing mostly the bare minimum to not drop out of the emerald league. But I've got a streak of about 208 days, and that is nothing to sneeze at! Do I feel like I'm learning? I dunno. But I am at least interacting with Spanish just about every day so that… that's got to be helpful, right? right?

This was over one thousand five hundred words. Wait! Sixteen hundred exactly.

[bills-bible-basics]

JUST IGNORE THIS GRAPHIC -- a poem by Bill Kochman Visit https://www.billkochman.com/Poetry/ to see more. To see other poems related to this one, go to: https://www.billkochman.com/Poetry/index.html#Miscellaneous-Poems If you don't understand this poem, don't worry about it. It is really just a bit of humor for other webmasters who likewise found it necessary to change some -- actually, a lot -- of their HTML code in order to satisfy Google's specifications for AMP, or Accelerated Mobile Pages. If you are interested in the actual technical specs regarding why I had to make this size change to my poetry graphics, please go here: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/data-types/articles#type_definitions https://www.billkochman.com/Blog/index.php/just-ignore-this-graphic-a-poem-by-bill-kochman/?feed_id=188337&JUST%20IGNORE%20THIS%20GRAPHIC%20--%20a%20poem%20by%20Bill%20Kochman

[tikkisaram]

Something Flowery — My Top Seven E. E. Cummings Poems about Plants

Flowers and other botanical beauties constitute an important element of E. E. Cummings's works. He uses them in several contexts; some of them are less positive than one might imagine, given the typical associations that flowers conjure. Here is a small selection of examples:

1. Nocturne

Flowers as an embodiment the beauty of a loved one is a bit of a cliché, and although Cummings is generally as unconventional as possible, he starts this poem off using the metaphor in a rather straightforward fashion. Still, it is not without interest, especially with the use of the divine number seven to elevate the comparison. Later on — describing heartbreak — he goes in a more interesting direction, saying that the flowers "smile like death".

Seven flowers which breathe divinity, Seven wondering blossoms of embrace, Open their glory to the moon, Kissing white immortality.

2. [my lady is an ivory garden]

A similar poem to the previous, sharing even the garden of ivory, but one in which the use of flowers as a metaphor is accompanied with a hefty dose of irony. Every part of the "lady" is described as a generic flower, occasionally with a descriptive adjective or two. A certain degree of fondness for the comparison is clear, however, and a tender beauty — or at least a strong infatuation — is conveyed.

her feet are slenderest each is five flowers her ankle is a minute flower my lady's knees are two flowers Her thighs are huge and firm flowers of night

3. [suppose]

Young Death buying flowers from old Life seems to allude to a curious — presumably romantic — relationship between the two men. There is a complication, however, in the form of the "lady" Afterwards — though her very existence is uncertain. Beneath the obvious ideas of life, death and life after death, there is a decidedly sexual undercurrent in the poem, one describing the difficulties of coming to terms with sexual identity.

suppose Life is an old man carrying flowers on his head.

4. [Nobody wears a yellow]

This poem is a logical continuation of the previous, adding Nobody to our cast of personifications. He is set apart from the binary labels of age used for Life and Death, and the pun on 'queer' could not be more obvious. The lapel flower is reminiscent of the Victorian practice of wearing a green carnation, which gay men would use to indicate their identity.

Nobody wears a yellow flower in his buttonhole he is altogether a queer fellow as young as he is old

5. [in a middle of a room]

Shunned and peripheralised by society at large, a queer man decides to shoot himself. His dehumanisation is cleverly conveyed by the use of the indefinite article 'a' for all descriptions of his actions. A powerful picture of the tragic effects of intolerance.

in a middle of a room stands a suicide sniffing a Paper rose smiling to a self

6. [!blac]

The fall of a leaf is a curious sort of flight — it clearly does not equal that of a bird, but there is a certain amount of freedom in its whirling. The separation of the leaf from its binary, black-and-white surroundings represents sexual liberation, but also hints at its limits. The poem is playful with form, with the letters twirling down the page in a similar way to Cummings's later poem [l(a].

le af

a:;go e swh IrlI n

.g

7. [once White&Gold], 18, 95 Poems

The sad thing about flowers is that — despite their seemingly undying beauty — they soon wilt and disappear. Cummings returns to the simple metaphor of flowers as love, but in this case what was once fine is now faded. Love's sorrows are nothing new, but it is hard not to see a condemnation of the pressures of society here, especially given the other instances of flowers in his poetry. This poem is also unusual in its use of rhyme and consonance, which Cummings usually dispensed with.

daisy in the Dust (trite now and old)

[azaadsamachar]

कालीन नगरी को 'नेताजी' ने ही बनाया था जिला, सपाइयों ने कहा- हो गए अनाथ हमलोग

कालीन नगरी को ‘नेताजी’ ने ही बनाया था जिला, सपाइयों ने कहा- हो गए अनाथ हमलोग

मखमली कालीनों के लिए विश्व प्रसिद्ध कालीन नगरी भदोही को तत्कालीन मुख्यमंत्री मुलायम सि���ह यादव ने जिला बनाया था। सपा संरक्षक के निधन की खबर से भदोही में लोग मर्माहत हैं। The city of Bhadohi was created by ‘Netaji’, the district, the spies said – we have become orphans आज़ाद-समाचार। मखमली कालीनों के लिए विश्व प्रसिद्ध कालीन नगरी भदोही से सपा संरक्षक और सूबे के पूर्व मुख्यमंत्री मुलायम सिंह यादव का…