Overview:
Thank you, Kindly (2023) was presented in the Performance Space Gallery as an installation with a private performance. Twenty people were invited to witness a recital of sensitive poetry new and old as The Swamp Monster sits in her pulpit of net and hair. A white projector light does little to illuminate her body under the protection of the net, serving as a screen for the viewer and the viewed.
What it felt like:
“Eyes to the Blackened ceiling
Black painted
I hung in the darkness
Conserving light for the show
I’ve been here an eternity
Hoping I’d fall asleep
Knowing I would never
My hair swaddles me like a baby, rocking me to sleep
Despite knowing I would never
Never fall asleep in the supposedly empty performance space building
Never soundless, the outside seeping into my Heart of Darkness
Like crickets and tiny buzzing insects deep in the murk
Of Texan waters near Houston
But more so in Leggett
I thought of what I’d say when they got here
When everyone arrived
When I’d feel their warmth enliven the space
Only these few may know their names
Take a piece of candy or two
Leave me an offering
To give this much, I must receive from you
Prove to me your sincerity; do not take this lightly
I’ve been here an eternity
Waiting in the darkness,
Hung in a web above a bed of glass
This is my sanctuary where I may be praised
Come to me; I cannot come to you myself
I am here
Waiting, in our Heart of Darkness
Readjusting in my pool of hair
waves of movement flow through the web, an extension of my body
Every braid connected and reconnected to locs connected and reconnected to my scalp like a wig crocheted into my brain
This feels like an ending
An oxymoronic death, a commitment to depth and depth alone
Who will I be afterward?
Once I accept change”