Tag: becca barniskis

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Becca Barniskis’ “Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket”

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From “Act III”

The stage shrinks down to a slender column of light.

Xavier Box

[walking around a cabinet lit from within and
stopping to peer inside from time to time, his
breath creating small clouds on the glass]
Dead cicada. Dried pod.
Greasy feather and what seems like a working compass.
Miniature furniture. Nonfunctioning radio.
A row of bones hanging on a string.
Must be all those soldiers
she killed.

Now I sleep standing up, marry
the light to memory
so that I may recall exactly
the correct sequence of events:

One I whistled. Two she returned.
Three I attacked the guard. Four I rattled at her cage.
Five we fled. Six we knocked out a soldier
standing by the entrance.
Seven is the steps leading down
and eight the rasp
of the heavy door opening to the outside
courtyard. Nine the horse.
Ten the ridge at night—
eleven her breath hot at the back of my neck
and the cold metal of the gun
she lifted coolly from the guard’s holster
as we ran by his slumped form.
Twelve is here, [tapping]
this glass.

—

This selection comes from Becca Barniskis chapbook Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket, available from Anomalous Press. Purchase your copy here!

Becca Barniskis’ chapbook of poems, Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket is just out (2014) from Anomalous Press and is available also as a musical collaboration with Nick Jaffe in both vinyl and digital formats. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from numerous journals, among them Handsome, The Boiler, Mid-American Review, burntdistrict, Conduit, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird and the Northwest Review. She teaches poetry and she works as a freelance writer and consultant in arts education for a range of schools, arts organizations and public agencies across the upper Midwest and around the US. Along with her co-authors Nick Jaffe and Barbara Hackett Cox she wrote the Teaching Artist Handbook, vol. 1: Tools, Techniques and Ideas to Help Any Artist Teach (University of Chicago Press). Becca is an associate editor at the Teaching Artist Journal. She also helped launch and develop Artist to Artist, a growing network of artists and educators who meet regularly to develop and share their teaching practice.

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Becca Barniskis’ “Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket”

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From “Act II”

X

[banging the wall in a pattern]
I hope she knows how to listen.
We must leave tonight.
In my mind I can feel the way
her hand encircled my wrist
momentarily.
A stronger grip than I expected
given her small frame.
With flames in it.

M

[head cocked to side]
Tonight then. I will be ready.

[Fade.]

—

This selection comes from Becca Barniskis chapbook Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket, available from Anomalous Press. Purchase your copy here!

Becca Barniskis’ chapbook of poems, Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket is just out (2014) from Anomalous Press and is available also as a musical collaboration with Nick Jaffe in both vinyl and digital formats. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from numerous journals, among them Handsome, The Boiler, Mid-American Review, burntdistrict, Conduit, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird and the Northwest Review. She teaches poetry and she works as a freelance writer and consultant in arts education for a range of schools, arts organizations and public agencies across the upper Midwest and around the US. Along with her co-authors Nick Jaffe and Barbara Hackett Cox she wrote the Teaching Artist Handbook, vol. 1: Tools, Techniques and Ideas to Help Any Artist Teach (University of Chicago Press). Becca is an associate editor at the Teaching Artist Journal. She also helped launch and develop Artist to Artist, a growing network of artists and educators who meet regularly to develop and share their teaching practice.

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.

 

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Becca Barniskis’ “Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket”

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From “Act II”

X

I bet she is eloquizing.
She has a way
of doing that:
charming,
heedless,
a racketeer
who extorts
meaning out of teacups.

M

I suppose he thinks that this is my fault.
Who could’ve known the explosion
would be so extravagant?
So…visible?
All my operations
heretofore have been more
disciplined.
Of course,
I never have been
seized that way: all my explosives
set off at once.

—

This selection comes from Becca Barniskis chapbook Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket, available from Anomalous Press. Purchase your copy here!

Becca Barniskis’ chapbook of poems, Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket is just out (2014) from Anomalous Press and is available also as a musical collaboration with Nick Jaffe in both vinyl and digital formats. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from numerous journals, among them Handsome, The Boiler, Mid-American Review, burntdistrict, Conduit, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird and the Northwest Review. She teaches poetry and she works as a freelance writer and consultant in arts education for a range of schools, arts organizations and public agencies across the upper Midwest and around the US. Along with her co-authors Nick Jaffe and Barbara Hackett Cox she wrote the Teaching Artist Handbook, vol. 1: Tools, Techniques and Ideas to Help Any Artist Teach (University of Chicago Press). Becca is an associate editor at the Teaching Artist Journal. She also helped launch and develop Artist to Artist, a growing network of artists and educators who meet regularly to develop and share their teaching practice.

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: Becca Barniskis’ “Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket”

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From “Act I”

Mimi

Inside my bones (fine china)
sweet powder and keg,
crackling lines,
thus the long sleeves and lace
at my wrists.
[whispering] But who has not peered
inside her own skull
and found it charred?
I steady my nerves
with a shot—
I may have to set a fuse
tonight.

X

When I was a boy
I believed in secret toys
that moved in cupboards
and hissed
through keyholes.
I played under tables in the nursery
with my tin weapons
and read earnest books
on wilderness survival.
I grew up! I studied war!
and how to pick locks:
women, books, maps.

—

This selection comes from Becca Barniskis chapbook, Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket, available from Anomalous Press. Purchase your copy here!

Becca Barniskis’ chapbook of poems, Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket is just out (2014) from Anomalous Press and is available also as a musical collaboration with Nick Jaffe in both vinyl and digital formats. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from numerous journals, among them Handsome, The Boiler, Mid-American Review, burntdistrict, Conduit, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird and the Northwest Review. She teaches poetry and she works as a freelance writer and consultant in arts education for a range of schools, arts organizations and public agencies across the upper Midwest and around the US. Along with her co-authors Nick Jaffe and Barbara Hackett Cox she wrote the Teaching Artist Handbook, vol. 1: Tools, Techniques and Ideas to Help Any Artist Teach (University of Chicago Press). Becca is an associate editor at the Teaching Artist Journal. She also helped launch and develop Artist to Artist, a growing network of artists and educators who meet regularly to develop and share their teaching practice.

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.

The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed – Becca Barniskis’ “Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket”

from “Act I”

My Name Is Xavier Box

I am unusually clever for my size
and shape. I turn on a pistol,
sleep cold leaded most nights.
I enter head first the dim hall,
look for letters left lying
about—unsent or incognito.
I have been sent to investigate
an almost secret war.
Its casualties are ashamed
and hide their injuries.
Their communiqués are in code.
I listen outside. And devise
my plans accordingly.
My Name Is Mimi Sprig

I have whole boxes of soldier
that I light on fire
to read by.
Those small heads burn
for some time.
‘I eat my enemies! I drink my foes!’
I would tell anyone who listened
(usually at breakfast).
But no one is left to hear.

Today I will sweep out all the rooms
and polish the empty tins
and clever plaster foodstuffs
arrayed so carefully in the pantry.
Then I will roll bandages.

 

—

This selection is from Becca Barniskis’ chapbook Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket, available from Anomalous Press. Purchase your copy here!

Becca Barniskis’ chapbook of poems, Mimi and Xavier Star in a Museum That Fits Entirely in One’s Pocket is just out (2014) from Anomalous Press and is available also as a musical collaboration with Nick Jaffe in both vinyl and digital formats. Her poetry has appeared in or is forthcoming from numerous journals, among them Handsome, The Boiler, Mid-American Review, burntdistrict, Conduit, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird and the Northwest Review. She teaches poetry and she works as a freelance writer and consultant in arts education for a range of schools, arts organizations and public agencies across the upper Midwest and around the US. Along with her co-authors Nick Jaffe and Barbara Hackett Cox she wrote the Teaching Artist Handbook, vol. 1: Tools, Techniques and Ideas to Help Any Artist Teach (University of Chicago Press). Becca is an associate editor at the Teaching Artist Journal. She also helped launch and develop Artist to Artist, a growing network of artists and educators who meet regularly to develop and share their teaching practice.

T.A. Noonan is the author of several books and chapbooks, most recently four sparks fall: a novella (Chicago Center for Literature and Photography, 2013) and, with Erin Elizabeth Smith, Skate or Die (Dusie Kollektiv, 2014). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Reunion: The Dallas Review, West Wind Review, Hobart, Ninth Letter, and Phoebe, among others. A weightlifter, crafter, priestess, and all-around woman of action, she serves as the Associate Editor of Sundress Publications, Founding Editor of Flaming Giblet Press, and Literary Arts Director for the Sundress Academy of the Arts.