When I was the beautiful girl
the fireflies signified:
I was trapped in amber.
In a sudden Midwest rain.
I sat on the curb with kids.
Eye shining, in rips and scuffs.
I held fast like an Indian
in a box of dead differences.
Stunned still.
A moth in a jar.
The ethics of the I, ignored.
When I was a beautiful girl,
in a system of ons and offs,
in the silent language of lighthouses,
in an inconsequential, feminine swarm,
the fireflies signified:
—
This selection comes from Anne Lesley Selcer’s A Book of Poems On Beauty, available from Gazing Grain Press. Purchase your copy here!
Anne Lesley Selcer is a poet and art writer. In 2014 from A Book of Poems on Beauty was chosen by Dawn Lundy Martin for Gazing Grain press. A double chapbook with Lara Durbeck was recently published by Supersuperette press. In 2013 SFMoma commissioned her for a series of essays and she wrote on language and the moving image. The book Banlieusard was commissioned in 2005 by Artspeak gallery, and other writing has been anthologized in It’s night in San Francisco, but it’s sunny in Oakland, The Feeling is Mutual: A list of our fucking demands, NW Edge III: the end of reality, and The Physics of Context. Poems are forthcoming in Fence and Armed Cell and have appeared in Dusie, Where Eagles Dare, and The Clackamus Review, among others. Art writing can be found in catalogs or monographs for galleries such as Centre A, the Or and the Helen Pitt gallery, and TV Books / Deitch Projects as well as in magazines Fillip and Doppelganger magazines. In San Francisco, she was a member of the Nonsite Collective. In Vancouver she created and curated the Chroma Reading Series series for artists, poets and researchers. She is the current resident at Krowswork gallery.
Darren C. Demaree is the author of three poetry collections, As We Refer to Our Bodies (2013, 8th House), Temporary Champions (2014, Main Street Rag), and Not For Art For Prayer (2015, 8th House). He is the recipient of three Pushcart Prize nominations and a Best of the Net nomination. He is also a founding editor of Ovenbird Poetry and AltOhio. He is currently living in Columbus, Ohio with his wife and children.
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