I find the idea that we write alone laughable, even egotistical. Poetry is a palimpsest that has been endlessly rewritten—it’s a social space we share with others.
—
Jen Bervin
Six Works by Alexis Rockman
- Frances McDormand by Willem Dafoe
- A.M. Homes by Gregory Crewdson
- Jafar Panahi by Liza Béar
- Padgett Powell by V. Hunt
- Butch Morris by David Henderson
- William Pope.L by Martha Wilson
- John Elderfield by David Carrier
- Malcolm Morley by Richard Francis
Interviews
- Thomas Nozkowski by Saul Ostrow
Artists on Artists
- Sold Out by Vess Quinlan
- Dogleg by Janet Kieffer
- Two Poems by Jayne Cortez
- Shrinking Away by Jim Northrup
- A Fling with a Demon Lover by Kelvin Christopher James
- Six Works by Alexis Rockman
- Solitude Ain’t Loneliness by Michelle T. Clinton
- Appointment in Wipe-ola by Archie Rand
- Considering the Void by President Jimmy Carter
- Hey, Joe by Ben Neihart
- From a Sealed Room by Rachel Kadish
- Tell Our Daughters by Besmilr Brigham
- Untitled by Sawyer Shefts
- The United States of Poetry by Bob Holman
- Two Poems by Susan Wheeler
- My Best Friend by Dirk Standen
First Proof
Alexis Rockman, Drainage Ditch: Georgetown, Guana, 1995, oil on wood, 60 × 100 inches. Courtesy of Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York.
Alexis Rockman, Untitled Mud Drawings, 1994, a combination of sewage, soil, and polymer, 4⅛ × 5¾ inches. Courtesy of Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York.
Alexis Rockman, Untitled Mud Drawings, 1994, a combination of sewage, soil, and polymer, 4⅛ × 5¾ inches. Courtesy of Jay Gorney Modern Art, New York.
Related
Yunes were human once. / They nursed babies and baked bread and made love beneath the shade of the willow tree. / Then they were drowned in the bog on the edge of town. / The marshlands kept them flawless. / Their skin tanned tight as a drum skin, sealing their spirits inside like caged dogs.
Vast plates shifted littler ones / with constant sounds and heat terrible / Then there was a cleft and so a river
“A precisely aimed reach into the immeasurable flow of things.”
Originally published in
BOMB 55,
Spring 1996
Featuring interviews with Frances McDormand, A.M. Homes, Padgett Powell, Tina Girouard, William Pope. L, Butch Morris, Malcolm Morley, Jafar Panahi, and John Elderfield.
