POEM + ARCHIVE
Listen to the poem in the author's voice and explore photographs and context from the accident behind it.
AUTHOR NARRATION
Read by A.F. King in the original English.
BEHIND THE POEM
On February 14, 2017, a large standing mirror fell while I was lying beneath it and shattered across my face.
The experience eventually became the starting point forOde to Eye Sockets: a poem of gratitude for the anatomical hollows that quietly shield some of the body's most vulnerable parts.
That idea expands through the poem into a broader gratitude for useful absences, protective recesses, negative results, backgrounds, and other essential things that are easiest to overlook when they are doing their jobs correctly.
And because this happened on Valentine's Day:yet another reason to F*** February.
FROM THE ARCHIVE
Photographs associated with the accident and its aftermath.
The standing mirror before the accident that would later inspire the poem.
The mirror after it fell and shattered on February 14, 2017.
One of the photographs documenting the physical aftermath of the accident.
Some archival photographs depict physical injury.
AUTHOR'S NOTEBOOK
The poem turns something normally invisible—the hollow around the eye—into an object of gratitude. Its usefulness comes partly from the fact that it is empty.
From eye sockets the poem moves toward other quiet negatives: recesses, backgrounds, negative test results, and absences whose value is often noticed only when something goes wrong.
Drafts, additional photographs, recollections, or other artifacts can be added to this exhibit as they turn up.
READER DISCUSSION
Reader responses will eventually appear here.
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