- Alex Odom

Alex, Edd, and I (yes, I feel free to speak for them) aren’t the most comfortable at potentially stuffy events such as these.  So here’s what happens: we find our corner, Alex looks spiffy in his tweed jacket, Edd says wise British things, and I generally point out the interesting surrounding wardrobe choices for the evening.  We sip our wine or Stella Artois (Edd says it’s the British version of PBR) and feel comfortable with each other.

Near the end of the evening, I noticed people walking into a curtained room located right next to the Somewhere Far From Habit room.  Like real life Wizard of Oz!  Of course I had to go, and was reminded of my childhood and my never-ending quest to find the perfect red shoes.  While daydreaming of red sequined Chuck Taylors, I walked into the room.  I sat on the black leather bench, saw the images of the Benevolent Virus appear across the scene, each one changing like The Horse of a Different Color—vibrant and striking like that.

The premise:  Anna Cox has handcrafted divine cards with a message.  There is time.  Stop worrying.  Ask for what you need.  Everything will be okay.  You are the solution.  Anna then leaves these cards at locations across the globe, ranging from quiet cafes in Italy to glitzy spaces in Las Vegas.  She photographs the cards where they lay, and spreads a benevolent epidemic.  The exhibition shows the photographs at random on a projector in a dark room.  People drifted in and out, various bodies sat beside me and got up, and one by one the pictures flicked across the scene, each coming like a small sure wave of hope.

Instantly, I was crafting stories about the receivers–what in their past would have led them to that exact geographic location, what possible emotional impact a few words from a stranger would have on them in an unexpected setting, the actual act of taking the card.  Hand to card, a swift look, the feeling of being filmed in a quirky movie, one where the act of receiving such a message is the “oh” uttered by Dorothy, the moment where the film switches from black and white to Technicolor.

What moved me so greatly was the art’s interactive intent.  Writing and art are lonely endeavors.  That last statement is a lying truth.  I think it’s important to constantly be switching our eyes inward and outward.  To never lack self-awareness, never to be all consumed by only our small place on the planet.  And here Anna Cox extends her hand in offering: courage, brains, and heart for you with a little bit of home.

-MeLaina Elise Evans

Empowered at a Dallas Hotel.

Halted on a walk in Chelsea.

Calmed on a flight from Heathrow to Dulles.

I love Poetry Daily.  Every morning, bleary-eyed, I pull the link from my favorites and try to start my day the right way.  One day, Frank Bidart.  The next, Valzhyna Mort.  At the beginning of the month it was this poem, by Stacie Cassarino:

http://poems.com/poem.php?date=14618

So what does this have to do with the black hole that is Facebook?  Because very often one of my brilliant poet friends will throw up a note with a poem they are feeling at the moment, or even a few lines in their status update.  My former classmate Jakob, a fabulous poet in his own right, posted the last seven lines of this poem recently and I was hit with a déjà vu-esque homesickness, the shock of the way I felt when I read it coming back to me swiftly.

What hits me about this poem is the poet’s ability to capture our vulnerabilities, our detachment and displacement.  The speaker is betrayed by their own hands, by their placement of objects, wanting only “the knees of some belief.”  Yet, that turn in the last few lines, the lines Jakob posted, is really what makes this poem fascinating to me.  The desire to steal “anything that promises not to leave” is overshadowed by the fact that the speaker, too, is a betrayer.  The strongest foundations are shakable.

I want a poet to remind me of the truths I forget.  I want a poet to annihilate me with memorable lyricism.  That’s what Stacie Cassarino’s poem does—it speaks to me from beneath a winter jacket, mouth to heart.

-MeLaina Elise Evans

We start talking about our favorite journals, trying to define our style, and decide we want a place for this.  THIS.  A place where we can post what we’re reading, what other journals are kicking ass at, art that thrills us.  A place where people can easily get an idea of what we love, hopefully a place where readers and writers come to be introduced to new or old favorite voices and images.

But most of all, we want this blog to be like those quiet kitchen conversations.  Writers over coffee, hungover or not, still in pajamas or not, speaking about the stuff we love.

-MeLaina Elise Evans

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We will alert you as soon as the postcards are available for purchase.

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