Poems from 4 Closure By Mary E. Weems in Response to Donald Black, Jr.'s For Closure series of photographs   The Closet                                                      #16             House-shit deep             no money separate like strangers             Two women not-touching             Each hides in me alone other not knowing   Later Loretta enters hugs their wedding picture             spends her time sitting on floor to rock smoke               Head open she talks to me   Her mind left, we lost our house and love I feel like a closet afraid to come out.  *   *   *   *   *  Skylight                                                          #18 I still work everyday pull light from sky let it down easy   Used to land on pillow, bedspread, two faces turned body shapes   Now I warm air still as one person in a room   Shape light into hands caress myself  *   *   *   *   *   Absence of Light                                            #27   Weeks before they lost their house, I was evicted like a roomer, window shades, drapes, doors closed for good.   I’ve been waiting outside for a crack, waving my rays over house like arms   Finally, one dark room gives in: Nothing can stop me, so good do I feel inside  *   *   *   *   *

The entire foreclosure process is bereft of humanity and driven by greed, and as usual the group hit the hardest is poor and Black. So if this is coming through in the poems—I think the work is doing what it's meant to. Not my conscious choice either, I "thought" I was going to create living people in each piece to tell their stories "but" since the images focused on "one" particular object—that's where the Creator took me.
 
Hope left with the families who still had some when they were forced out of these homes. Also, I think you're missing the subjectivity in this work—as someone who was raised in slumlord housing and who knows how it feels to be evicted, and not know where you're going to lay your head next—I think the lens I create this work through is informed by something deep, personal and unforgettable. Bits and pieces of my life are all in this work—unrecognizable by the reader who doesn't know me—but all of our writings are informed by what we've lived and these poems are no exception. So when I write about after hour joints, abused children in basements, boys whose fathers have left the home, women who are victims of long term domestic violence etc.— I'm all over this work like a fingerprint :).
 
I think many objects have stories to tell depending upon our human connection/memory of them. The pair of Mammy/pappy salt and pepper shakers from my granny's house speak to me...these objects spoke to me loud, clear, and in rapid succession or these poems would not exist.
 
I appreciate your feedback brother, and agree that either folk will get into this work or turn away from it—in either case I don't think they'll forget it once read.
 
Also, I've revised three of the poems "The Closet" "Skylight" and "Absence of Light" (which ends on hope). Peace, Mary

 *   *   *   *   *

 *   *   *   *   *

Mary E. Weems, Ph.D. is an accomplished poet, playwright, author, editor, performer, motivational speaker, and imagination-intellect theorist. Weems has been widely published in journals, anthologies, and several books including Public Education and the Imagination-Intellect: I Speak from the Wound in My Mouth (Lang, 2003), developed from her dissertation which argues for imagination-intellectual development as the primary goal of public education. She won the Wick Chapbook Award for her collection in 1996, and in 1997 her play Another Way to Dance won the Chilcote award for The Most Innovative Play by an Ohio Playwright. Her most recent chapbook Tampon Class (Pavement Saw Press, 2005) is in its second printing. Mary Weems currently teaches in the English and Education departments at John Carroll University, and works as a language-artist-scholar in k-12 classrooms, university settings and other venues through her business Bringing Words to Life. Contact Professor Weems, mweems45@sbcglobal.net, for readings and more information.

*   *   *   *   *