Vacancies & Sacrament of the Ordinary

The Gallery

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:00:00 -0400

The Gallery

Tired Eyes: 3 Collaborations Photography by Kate Ambrose Poetry...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:50:00 -0400

Tired Eyes: 3 Collaborations

Photography by Kate Ambrose

Poetry by Matt Gundlach

We’re face to face and hand in hand

   While under bridges

   Of embrace expire

Eternal tired tidal eyes

   The night is a clock chiming

The days go by not I

Guillaume Apollinaire

from ”Mirabeau Bridge”

Dave’s trades I Fabricator junk lays about, he finds...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:45:00 -0400

Dave’s trades

I Fabricator

junk lays about, he finds it

rigs it into its right place

scrap metal, plywood, planks, parts

piled in his lot and shack

and then the bulldozer

refuse to the last minute

stuff strewn about the past

and could-be till rigged into story

II Fool Killer

God’s guy. Awake in 72-hour stints,

running on coffee and beer;

dust and smoke like incense

drifting from shack to the humid heavens.

Spark, thrown stones—

spit slung, get the fuck off my property

axe in squatter’s hand.

Kicking Satan’s red behind for

fifty years and

III Doctor

a tumor a lung’s monkey wrench

right-tight turn. Ribs broken by

prison guards. Hacking tired defiance.

The bulldozer’s coming, and the rain.

Physician, heal thyself.

IV Dealer

Scripts—sell ’em. No pain relief.

Some cash for food.

100 pounds to gain for chemo

and a habit and Slim Jim

so thin

no meow no purr but always in lap.

eating it all

V Preacher

If I told the story what would I tell

except the sunrise

at dawn in the west

sky blue pink.

on the road again

The child prodigy revival preacher

fuck the bulldozer, the past.

I’m under the stars

the best ceiling,

the way I want it

the present future

sky blue pink in the west

Mamita: 100 Years Old, 60 Years Blind

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:04:00 -0400

Mamita

Mamita: 100 Years Old, 60 Years Blind

Taron’s Eyes

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:00:00 -0400

poem

Taron

Taron’s Eyes

Vacancies: Public Poetry Installations

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:58:00 -0400

Vision sets out

journeying somewhere,

walking the dreamwaters:

arrives

not on the far shore but upriver,

a place not evoked, discovered.

Denise Levertov, “Relearning the Alphabet”

Things magnify.

Tomas Tranströmer, “The Prelude”

But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion.

Luke 10:33

Compassion requires vision. Not as an abstraction that we associate with being a “visionary,” a seer, the ability to see other realities—the future, the supernatural—but a matter of attention in the present. Compassion starts with looking—allowing our eyes to receive what is before us. From looking, an act of submission, we turn to seeing. Attention lets in the light to shine on our imagination. Jesus tells us that the Samaritan “saw” the man on the road to Jericho—and his eye, attentive, did not just look at the man, but moved him to compassionate action. It takes a prophetic imagination that the priest and the Levite lacked—they looked, but their imagination was captive to the false narratives, so when they looked, they saw not a neighbor to love, an equal, a neighbor. Jesus says that they saw him, but they must not have truly seen him, but saw him according to eyes of inattention head and heart directed by dominant [hegemonic] narratives.

See, act. See, say.

There enters the poem, an act of attention.

And now I see that poetry is a form of attention. And, too, I believe that poems are presences, themselves the consequence of attention, themselves the consequence of vivid presentations, events as may be called, in Dame Julian of Norwich’s word, “showings.” (Donald Revell, The Art of Attention)

Not using poetry for a cause (“to use is to misuse” – Levertov), but presenting the what is seen ( the language given to me from eye and ear attentive to this unique space) allowing the same act of presence and attention for the reader.

What is it that we are looking at? The First Ward. A neighborhood. One oft-overlooked; for decades a ghetto. (Drawing attention to broken social space takes a certain Samaritan eye.)

The First Ward is a gentrifying neighborhood, with juxtapositions in wealth along racial lines that are painfully clear. The vacant lot was to me the clearest symbol of this change—embodying the tensions of transition, ownership, and identity, being mediated by text (that is, the commercial text of a real estate sign). The vacant lot is where Vacancies started: adding creative language into the visual format of the commercial sign was a way to stand within this space as resistance and as play.

In the Vacancies project poetry may be read as protest, but that is extremely limiting. Poetry is also play. Social, political, yes, but also personal—because it invades a politically charged space, trespassing on the territory of commercial text with the play of creative language; trespassing on the walkway of negative social change, walking backwards, saying it different having seen it different.

Vacancies only asks that we pay attention, and be willing to submit our eyes to the images and our ears to sounds. No abstractions.

As a part of Mission Year, I was given the opportunity to live and serve among the poor for a year. I also, as a member of the pilot Arts Team, took on the task of serving the community through creating. The poet, I believe, is the servant of the work (he/she does not use the poem, the poem uses him/her). So this year, I made things. This is what happened.

“Houses Like Halved Pears”

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:56:00 -0400

Houses Like Halved Pears Window

Houses Like Halved Pears

Houses Like Halved Pears pt1

Houses Like Halved Pears pt2

“Houses Like Halved Pears”

Having Heard of Rivers (After Langston)

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:55:00 -0400

Having Heard of Rivers (After Langston)

Oyendo De Ríos (My own translation of Having Heard of Rivers)

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:54:00 -0400

Oyendo De Ríos

(My own translation of Having Heard of Rivers)

First Ward Elegy #1

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:53:00 -0400

First Ward Elegy #1

Demolished text from “La Loma” by...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:52:00 -0400

Demolished

text from “La Loma” by raúlrsalinas

arranged by Matt Gundlach and Becky Harlan

Demolido “La Loma” translated by Matt

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:51:00 -0400

Demolido

“La Loma” translated by Matt

Sacrament of the Ordinary Snapshots of everyday significance...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:45:00 -0400

Sacrament of the Ordinary

Snapshots of everyday significance throughout the First Ward

It didn’t take long after moving into my new home in Houston’s First Ward nieghborhood before previous mental associations with the inner-city underwent a transformation.

As I sat on front porches, in living rooms and on kitchen floors, entering into the ongoing story of neighbors all around me, words like dirty, trashed, run down, and crowded were replaced with a new understanding: Beauty, Resilience, Creativity, Connection, Faith.

This, then, is the story of my neighborhood through a combination of photo and text captured from October 2010 through July 2011.

knowing and being known — the sacred awakened through the ordinary.

so every day

i was surrounded by

the beautiful crying forth

of the ideas of God,

one of which was you

- Mary Oliver

S.O.T.O: Kate’s wall, 9 First Ward Women

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:44:00 -0400

Clara

Ana

Lilia

Isabel

Floresmira

Olinda

Doris Mae

Hilda

Sadie

Esmeralda

S.O.T.O: Kate’s wall, 9 First Ward Women

sadie born 11 april 1929 living in First Ward since 1955 I came...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:43:00 -0400

sadie
born 11 april 1929

living in First Ward since 1955

I came here from Alabama. My parents moved here for a job and then my husband got a job after we, we got married at that church down Crockett. Church called New Hope. I was married in 1953. I think. Yeah, I think it was in 1953 — but it was too long ago to remember for sure. My husband and I, we was born into different churches, but then one time his cousin introduced us at a social function and I fried him some pork chops, and we been together ever since. Take your time, girl, take your time. Ain’t no rush when it comes to marriage. Can’t get married without a friend! Uhuh, can’t get married without a friend. I been married for over 50 years because, mhmm, just did the right things. You take care of your husband, your husband take care of you. Marriage ain’t never too easy ’cause it gets old just like everythin’ else but it’s, it’s important to never let your husband sleep in one bed and yourself in other ’cause when that happens, you’re not talkin’ to each other, then your marriage is gettin’ old. Gotta be doin’ somethin’ about that then.

You can call me Miss Sadie. Or Miss Long. It don’t matter, just so long as you don’t forget my name! I used to have a first name. It be Katie. Katie, that’s an old person name! That’s an old name. Yeah, my name was Katie but I changed it to Sadie. I don’t really know how I spelled it because it’s been, it’s too long, but it’s Sadie now.

I tried my best to be a good mama. I tried to teach my children the right things: go to church. Serve the Lord. Don’t steal, don’t lie. Go to school and get an education. I tried to raise my children with an ability to learn because, see, I never got the chance to learn like they are now. You don’t need no magic equation; just raise ’em right and they know the right things to do.

See, when I was comin’ up, we had to go to the fields and pick cotton and things like that so I never went to school and I don’t know how to read. My children, though, they can read now. They real smart. My daddy, mhmm, he used to work in the fields and my mama, she raised the children, she raised all of us. Yeah. That’s how it goes! We made it, though. We never did argue too much, no, no one in my family argue much now either. What do you have to argue about? Mhmm, ain’t no reason. We had clothes and food to eat and things to wear when it got cold so we never went hungry and it wasn’t that bad. It was never too, too bad. There was always food on the table and a roof over our heads. We had enough to live on and that, that be a blessing. Yeah, a regular blessing. You really don’t need a whole lot. God always provides.

hildaborn 28 january 1927 living in First Ward since 1952 I’m...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:42:00 -0400

hilda
born 28 january 1927

living in First Ward since 1952

I’m Catholic, baby. I was baptized as a baby, and then I took my First Communion, and then I married Catholic, and now I’ve raised my own Catholic. I just love it! I’m old, but I still try to go, you know. It doesn’t make you any better, going to church, because it’s all in your heart — if you’re kind to people, if you’re nice to people, that’s really what matters. But. I’m Catholic, baby. I pray to the Blessed Virgin. I know that God hears me when I pray. I pray, “Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory be to God and to the Father,” and—you know, that’s how it goes. If there’s something that’s hard, I just pray, and it becomes easier.

I moved to Houston because of my husband, so that he could get a better job here. Things were better with money in Texas than in Louisiana, but I still miss it. It’s not the same. Baby, when we first moved here, I was solonesome. I didn’t know no body! Back home, I was surrounded by my people: mother, father, grandfather, and all sorts of people who knew me. And then we came to Houston in a truck and we moved into this nice, big house, and we had everything nice and big, you know, but it’s not the same. I’m too country. Sometimes I go out to visit my grandchildren in California but after two weeks, they say, “Ol’ Hilda, she missing the country, it’s time to send her back home!”

I’ve lived in this house here since, uh, 1956. My husband died when my youngest, he Reuben, was still a baby, and that was hard — but I managed. I had 15 children of my own, honey, and then I had my grandchildren that I raised: Ricky and Eugene, and I raised Leola, and uh, Ray, and then Frank — oh, Lord, honey, I’ve raised too many kids! 22 altogether with my kids and they grandkids and then the neighbor children also. What I could do for mine, I did for theirs. Now… things are so high. I’m glad, I’m glad they’re all grown now! I love children, though. I tried to do all the best that I could to help them get grown — I tried to teach them how to respect people and not to curse and to love other people. Oh yes, sometimes I had to spank them, especially when I would tell them one thing to do and they would go and do the other thing. Do it backwards-like. But I love children. If you raise your kids right, you can tell. They not running around, they not getting into things; they real respectful-like. It’s, uh, what’s that old song, honey? “Raise them on a wing and a mother’s prayer…” Mhmm. A mother has nothing to worry about just because her children have left the home as long as the home training is right. Now, even though they big, they old, they have their own children, they still say, they men here call me, “Mama Hilda.” Mhmm. I always just talk nice to kids, and show them what’s wrong about what they say, or what they do, and they — they just trust my word. They always do. It doesn’t matter, it could be a white child, or Spanish, or any kind. It doesn’t matter. I talk to them nice, and show them that they may have made a mistake, and they might not always do it, but I just tell them, and so we get along.

doris mae born 11 july 1928 living in First Ward since...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:41:00 -0400

doris mae
born 11 july 1928

living in First Ward since 1928

I don’t go according to race, creed or color. I help all people. I’m friendly to all. I don’t have no prejudices in my heart against nobody because, baby, it don’t matter what color your skin is: if you cut, we all bleed the same color.

I’m playful. I always have been. They say you live a long time when you, well, you know what I mean — when you don’t sit around and hold your head and be a-grievin’ and a-thinkin’, but when you play. I always, always, always have played! It don’t matter. I sit there on that porch and if you pass by and sit down and talk to me, then I’ll talk to you. I just love to have fun and joke. Sometimes, though, I be sitting out on my porch and some people, they pass by, and they don’t say nothin’. I speak to them first and after that, I make friends. Uhuh. Sure do. Love to have fun. Always have.

Mhmm, I married myself a country man. We were together around sixty something years, from 1945 until he passed. We do like we did up in front of that church: until death do us part. He was a nice, sweet man: taking care of his family, just a plain, old man, and we sure enjoyed him. We courted for awhile and then when I graduated high school in, uh, ‘45, we got married. I was nice to my husband and he was nice to me; that’s all I know but it sure did serve me well. We didn’t run around none on each other. You be sure you pick a good man. Just ‘cause he looks nice and everything doesn’t mean anything. You can’t go by looks. They deceivin’. You have to go by how he treats you, how he loves you, takes care of you. That’s it.

My married life was good. I don’t regret anythin’ about my married life. My husband… you know how men sit down? And block things out with their hat? So one time he bought himself that hat and he would find a chair, a little baby chair belonged my daughter, and he would find her chair to sit in and block the rest out. So when he went to sit down, I pulled the chair away, and then he hit me. And then I hit him back! And that was that. See. Yeah. I was just playin’ with him but I was wrong because he could havehurt hisself. He never did hit me but that one time. He real good.

olinda born 13 October 1952 living in First Ward since...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:40:00 -0400

olinda
born 13 October 1952

living in First Ward since 1952

I like to go a lot. I’m a mover, I like to move, I love moving. I always move on my emotions. I get up on my emotions. When the sun sets, I’m still moving. Yeah. I move on my emotions and, uhuh, they can’t kick me out of here. If I don’t move, you gonna know something’s wrong with Olinda. Yeah. That’s real.

Skirts. They my favorite. I was thinking on myself this morning. I was thinking, “If there’s one damn thing about it, she might be getting old, but Olinda, she still gonna put on her skirt and her blouse and her socks. She still gonna walk out lookin’ good. I might not have money in my pocket but I’m gonna have clothes on.” Yes, ma’am. Blue jeans also. Especially those with the emblems on them, girl, and the Westerns, the Western blouse with the different colors. That’s my favorite. And, umm, the purse? The weave purse, you ever seen those? I have a lot of those. They my specialty. I wear hats but I don’t really wear them to church, uhuh, no, ma’am. I have a lot of wigs, too. I need to get rid of some of ‘em. I gotta get rid of stuff because I am accumulating too much. My daughter, she told me, “Mama, you have too much stuff in this house!” and I said, “I know. It just don’t make no sense. You right.” I’m gonna get rid of stuff, but it’s hard, especially if you didn’t have things for a long time before, baby.

I love color. I haven’t written it down on paper but I gots it in my mind, what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna fix up this house of mine. Mhmm. Because I see: the sun shines on my house more than on any other on this street and it’s clear that I need to do some renders. So I’m praying. I’m praying about my renders because I see it. I feel it. And I know — there needs to be more color out here. I sure love all color.

I’m more like my mother. Mhmm. I try to stay focused, I try to maintain my house, and I don’t bother nobody. I don’t get in nobody’s business. Like I told my daughter, “If I’m gonna do something for you, I’m gonna do it in a way that you don’t have to say you owe me. I’m gonna give it to you from my heart and what you do with it, uhuh, that’s your problem.” Mhmm. That’s it.

floresmira born 19 october 1939 living in First Ward since...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:39:00 -0400

floresmira

born 19 october 1939

living in First Ward since 1963

I’ll tell my history to you. God, He has a good purpose for my mother and the children, my sisters. I am the one, though, I am the one He used to be a leader—like, I for example, I had to pass a river that is difficult to pass from Columbia so I had the blessing of God to go. He gave me all the things I need in order to pass over the river and when I pass, I do the best I can to bring my people over also. All this only possible with the blessings of God. Every day, I say, “Who am I? Who is me? Why does God have blessings for me?” Because I can see that, one day, a lot of people that are healthy are now passed away. They have passed away but myself, my mother, and my children are here.

So we are over here because God has a purpose for me. But when God has a purpose for you and you don’t pay attention, you don’t have no gratitude, no grateful—me, I don’t know how I can thank my Father God because He has done so much for me. The people ask me, “Flor, why you no do this, who you no do that?” and I say, “My Father God has given me strength to do as much as I can do! So if He doesn’t give it to me, I can’t do it. Why He can give me more?” Right now, He can give me a solution to these problems I have with the economy and He is going to help me one way or the other.

The biggest difference for me personally between Texas and Columbia is the safety. Over there, it’s dangerous. Very dangerous. People leave. At first, they have a normal life but then, there are informants, people coming to take information, and no one knows if you’re just coming to hear a story or if you’re coming to take a lot, and then when they coming, they coming to torture you. To kill you.

Me, I have a dream. I wish I can have a program for to bring lots of men, ages 15-29, and instruct them, give them instructions on how the life is and how we supposed to do and how we supposed to raise the children. Sometimes men say, “It’s the ladies. It’s the ladies who have to raise them and to teach to the kids and to make them sit down… but then they never ask, the men never ask, how you doing? How you doing with your homework? They no care.” So the way I want to talk with the men, I say, “You have to have responsibility for the children you’re going to have once you get married. In your heart, you need to be able to raise them right so that we can have a good neighborhood. A traditional neighborhood, where kids can watch and enjoy without being introduced to too many destroying things.” When you help the guys, they can take it to their work where all the others hang out, and then you can spread the seeds — like that. You can work in the nation. Not just in the neighborhood, but in the nation, and when you have the seeds, you spread them around. They gonna grow around and around in the corner and… one of these days, I’m going to ask God to make my dream come true.

isabel born 11 april 1929 living in First Ward since 1955 This...

Tue, 19 Jul 2011 14:38:00 -0400

isabel

born 11 april 1929

living in First Ward since 1955

This one over here, one night, he come home from work and, and, we don’t know what happened. How it started or what happened… anyways, these guys killed him. My grandson. Richard’s son. I don’t know. We were sleeping, but they were walking over there by those white houses and they, they, they killed him. I see, I saw the ambulances and everything, but I don’t know it was him until the police came here. The police was coming in here. My husband came to the door when they knocked, and then he ran to my room to get me, and they said, “Frank, he’s dead.” And I said, “Oh, my God.” I remember… I was sitting right here on this sofa with my feet on this carpet, not saying anything, not doing anything. I couldn’t even move. He had come to live with me since he was two days old because his mama, she went to jail after she came out of the hospital, and I raised him. He was never mean, he treated everyone nice, I don’t know why it happened to him. They never caught those men who killed him, you know. Never. I’m so sad. I’m still mad.

Sometimes my grandkids come over and try to get me to move. They say, “Grandma, it will be good for you, the change,” but I say, “Where you think I can go to forget something like that?” Nothing changes; it’s all in your heart.

I believe in my God and that’s all. I pray to my God every day and every night. I go to lie down in my bed at night, I look up at the sky, and I pray. For my kids. For my sisters. For everybody. That’s it! That’s the way I live and that makes me happy. Sometimes I’m in the backyard, hanging up my clothes, and I pray. I praise God. Richard comes out and he says, “Mama! Who you talking to? You crazy or something?” And I say, “Boy, shut up! I’m praying to my God!” I meet with God here in my house and that’s good for me. Yes, my belief in God helps me when life is hard. I believe that. And when I pray, that makes my day better.

I like to stay here all the time because I love this place. I don’t want to go somewhere else. I live happy. Everything here is mine. Nobody bothers me. I’m not going to run away. I’m not afraid to go, you know. I’m not afraid to die. Not at all. I feel happy. When the time goes, I go over there where my kids and husband are waiting for the rest of us to join them. I don’t worry none.

I don’t ask God to have this or to have that, to have too many beautiful things like a rich, greedy woman. No, I’m happy with what God has already given me. I’m happy. I never ask my God to have this, to have something good, something better; instead, I’m thanking my God because we’re supposed to be satisfied with what God has already given us. That’s the way I see it.