Here is the image for the March Invite to Write:
Our symbol for this month is anthropomorph.
Why does our art so often reflect the appearence and shapes of our bodies? How do we understand our own world by observing our selves, however abstracted, within it? Alternately, what compels our manifestation of the beyond and the abstract as human? The anthropomorph is a fundamental metaphor of our visual language, allowing us to understand the very real presence of the invisible world. To reflect ourselves in the world is to make sense of ourselves within it and well as to make sure that we can communicate our presence in the world to others. By anthropomorphising what we cannot see, we can make our emotions, experiences, and ideas more real to the observer. In your poems, we hope that you explore these ideas, thinking about the ways we not only insert our self in the creative process but how we create and manipulate stories, characters, events, real people, etc. into narratives and shapes to make our own objectivities into imagined realities.
Happy writing!
Image: Anthropomorph (c. 1500 - 1000 BC), from India, Bronze Age, Cleveland Museum of Art.
Here are some submissions that came via email:
I am strong
Have no fear
Know that I protect you
With my power
I stand watch upon your hearth
You are safe, your children are safe
My arms cover you
Look no farther, rest.
Stan Perelman
I invite you
to embrace me
but be careful
I am hungry
anything could happen.
Ellen Kruger
Did I mistake you for a god?
Arms agape, flawless patina, exposed heart
Yet, riveted to an ancient time and place
fast forward
You strike me as a man
Flinty and inert
Who's There?
Did they travel on invisible rivers?
Do they see my empty hands?
Is welcome seen in fear-staring eyes?
Do walking shadows move with purpose?
Will misty daybreak show the sacred mountain?
Is this evil? Is this good?
Is triumph found in hidden prayer?
Are shuddering dreams failure foretold?
How long before the impact of defiance?
Spreading out! Who seems to lead?
No birds? Is silence everywhere?
Is this the meaning of despair?
Motherhood is like that …
all-embracing, stretched beyond limits, mommy-brain and no-neck,
all-body and big-arms calling, Come, ye!
But please, would you have my back?
Jean Kirsch
My form and shape
are questioned
by an explorative gaze,
which is always
there
judging,
comparing,
wishing for more,
desiring,
undressing.
It’s unquestionable,
unquestioned,
ever critical,
tacitly
supported by
yet invisible to
me.
I surrender
to its nagging:
Why aren’t you?
What if?
How could you?
You should…
You are not quite…
Yet when the inner judge
thinks that I’m done for
When he locks the cell
and loses the key,
my stripped of all clothes
naked
judged
challenged to succumb,
challenged to be up to
the expectations
of the
explorative gaze—
body
wakes me up
to the knowledge—
It’s a dream,
and hence
I’m free.
I’m free
to be real,
awakened me—
to be fearless
daring
bursting with joy
of flying
swimming
running
breathing
wallowing
in my lucidity.
my dream-empowered
feather-light
unfettered
body—
leads
the way
through the borders
of doubt
through yelling
through shushing
through critics
through judges
through chains
and walls
through it all.
As it soars
It now knows:
the preposterous
critic
is
just a part
of the dream
from which I woke up.
My lucid
dream body
is up to the challenge
of being real—
of being free
not only
from
the explorative gaze
but also
from any
form and shape
imposed
on the sleeping.