hearing with your eyes

I think a lot about the McGurk effect. The effect is a perceptual phenomenon in which a person "hears" what they see when audio & visual do not match up.

I feel this is the foundation of concrete poetry. Something I've been playing with recently as part of my poem-a-day project.

day 467 - falling

day 469 - cacophony

day 472 - lady dawn (after sappho as translated by anne carson)

Poem-A-Day #471 - Going from Natalie Raymond on Vimeo.

"I am a mixture."

- Frida Kahlo.

mixture
late middle english
from latin

how many parts
can make you
up.

two poems for america, october 2017

(day 224)

(day 225)

an old poem about things falling apart

making it

Excited to be working in pre-production again on a short film project I've written & am slated to direct & star in!

For a while I've been thinking about making videos for poems in the way we have music videos for songs. After a lot of pacing & deliberation I wrote a script based on a poem from my graduate thesis & am in the thick of pre-production! Storyboards done! I'm meeting with my talented friend, & the DP of 4B, Freddy Tang to talk logistics. We're gearing up to shoot mid-October! It's going to be quite the little adventure, a road trip out to location, & a hot summer day, but I think we can make something really rad.

idols

all our idols
are dead

their lean muscles curved
in on themselves like too long
fingernails beckoning
us to the stage made
of bones & blood sacks

our awakening
our funerary pyre

covering songs as poems

wrote a poem as a remix of my fave song ever: nobody's baby by sharon jones & the dap kings.


nobody’s baby

tired
of being asked
to bend round
over my spine—
it’s leaving time

won’t stay
can’t say
why—only that

that brand
on my back
don’t say:
“yours”

only says:
“mine”

list of words while watching Samiya Bashir's 'M A P S'

emily dickinson's 1129, original manuscript (johnson numbering)

(the first two lines of which is tattooed on my arm)

the six parts of jesus

1.
teeth white like
bird shit on a black
honda parked
in the sun on a tuesday
in hollywood.

2.
a single red shoe
worn in & cracked
at the bends in the leather
laces never tied--
he trips often.

3.
attached to the back
of his head like voldemort
a second, feminine face
complete with a ring
of worn purple lipstick.

4.
two eyes.
two testicles.

5.
"I can't draw a picture
of my father because
I don't remember
his face."

6.
those pesky nails
crusting into his hands
& feet, "I've an itch 
I can't scratch"
he says.

excerpt from a work in progress:

"a hundred miles out in the ocean
my body rolls on the horizon
& all that exists is blue"

spring cleaning

when the dust

settles

& still somehow

those memories 

remain

wislawa szymbroska

THE DAY AFTER — WITHOUT US

The morning is expected to be cool and foggy.

Rainclouds

will move in from the west.

Poor visibility.

Slick highways.

Gradually as the day progresses

high pressure fronts from the north

make local sunshine likely. 

Due to winds, though, sometimes strong and 
       gusty,

sun may give way to storms.

At night

clearing across the country,

with a slight change of precipitation

only in the southeast.

Temperatures will drop sharply,

while barometric readings rise.

The next day

promises to be sunny,

although those still living

should bring umbrellas. 

blackout

the pitkin review fall 2013 issue website is up.

get a sneak peek of the contents, & my design work.

a poem

roaches

I love cockroaches

the way they breathe

through their skin

if you submerge them

in water they hang limp—

a simulation of death

but once they dry out

their antennae twitch

& they sprint into the dark.

I am saturated— 

all my orifices shut 

laying in stasis

entombed like sewage 

I wait for the sun

to dry my flesh

"Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair 
And I eat men like air."


-sylvia plath, lady lazarus
october 1962