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lookingglass
Through the "Looking Glass," readers are invited to dig deeper into our issues as contributors share reflections on their work. Specifically, "Looking Glass" provides a sort of parlor where authors and artists reveal the genesis of their pieces, as well as provide meta-discursive insight into their textual and visual creative works. Issue 28 Reflections
Read on for reflections by select authors and artists
on the genesis and craft of their pieces in Glassworks and then read the full issue online! |
Sarah Harley
"Have You Got the Moon Safe"
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“Have You Got the Moon Safe” explores my own journey through motherhood, shaped by the tragic loss of my father and sister during my son’s childhood, as well the deaths of my mother and brother before he was born. This lyrical piece endeavors to articulate the difficulty of balancing profound fear and boundless love. Inspired by a line from a Denise Levertov poem, about safeguarding the moon, the essay aims to capture both extraordinary and magical realms that appear out of reach, and also the ordinary and sublime parts of life as it is lived.
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K Anand Gall
"Nuisance Bleeding"
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“Nuisance Bleeding” is a sequel companion piece to another poem of mine, “Mehndi Ceremony, Night Before our Wedding” (https://poets.org/2023-betty-jane-abrahams-memorial-poetry-prize), which describes the mehndi stain applied to my palms, hands, arms, and feet as part of my Hindu wedding celebration. Months after my wedding, my skin was stained again, this time with bruises that are a typical complication of the anticoagulant therapy prescribed to me following the closure of a hole in my heart that had caused me to have a stroke. I was struck by these parallels. In one cultural context, the marks on my skin symbolized the celebration of marriage; in another they prompted suspicion of domestic violence. The person who most cared for me, who tended to my little wounds with compassion and tenderness, was perceived by the external world as my potential abuser. I wanted this poem to explore the microaggressions my husband and I face in our interracial marriage as an injury for more pernicious than nuisance bleeding.
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Katie Hughbanks
"Dream Flowers, Water Needles"
I bought an underwater camera last year, and it changed my photography. Before that little Olympus, I was taking photos; today, I am making art. My photography dances with an exploration of light, air, and water. Those three elements, so necessary for living, are now necessary for my creative life. Light, to me, is like a violinist’s sheet music; air, like a painter’s canvas. To me, water is a sculptor’s block of marble. My camera is the potter’s clay. Both "Dream Flowers" and "Water Needles" reflect the beauty of these basic elements in the natural world. The two photos are inverses-one is taken in fresh air, with water droplets catching light, and the other is taken underwater, with air bubbles shining in light.
Every day, photography offers me new eyes with which to see and a new way to express my love for the world. What a joy it is to learn, to develop, to share beauty with others while celebrating light, air, and water as life forces.
Every day, photography offers me new eyes with which to see and a new way to express my love for the world. What a joy it is to learn, to develop, to share beauty with others while celebrating light, air, and water as life forces.
Angela Townsend
"Gold-Plated"
“Gold-Plated” was the overflow of my heart from an unexpected friendship. When I ordered a Lucite block so I could hold my name in my own hands, I never imagined the volley of delight that would ensue. Across eight thousand kilometers and twelve Etsy orders, the artist Salih became my friend and my co-conspirator in delivering delight. I think of him each time I learn someone’s name. I want to bear witness to the light between the letters, etching magnolias on every monogram. I never want to miss the opportunity to speak someone’s loveliness. Salih reminds me that our names are sacred syllables. I am forever grateful to my joyous, wise friend.
Alisha Brown
"Lessons from a whippet on a springtime walk, Andalucía en octubre"
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I wrote ["Lessons from a whippet on a springtime walk"] while I was pet-sitting in Sydney and grieving a relationship that had recently ended. I’d walk the dog every day and notice the beauty of springtime–the warming air, the purple jacarandas, the children playing in the street. It felt so fresh and new and alive, and I felt separate from it. My own inner season was one of death, and compost, and endings. At its core, this poem is an expression of denial, wishing that I had been feeling something other than what was true. The repeated line “I do not think of you” betrays the fact that I was, of course, thinking about my ex-partner, and wishing that I could move on as simply and thoughtlessly as a whippet moves from sent to interesting scent.
["Andalucía en octubre"] is a romance. I have always been enamoured by the south of Spain, and when I returned last year, I was once again in awe. There’s something so rustic and rich about that part of the world. I was staying on the top of a mountain, looking down over olive groves and cactus farms and villas dotted throughout the valley. This gave me an almost god-like viewpoint from which to observe my surroundings, and everything felt so alive. I really wanted this poem to feel enticing and romantic, so I chose imagery that would allude to love, or sex, or the body. My hope is that the reader feels seduced by (and towards) another world. |
Cory Firestine
"Reaching Corals, Cascade, Paisley"
For me, my artistry is a way to still and stabilize my mind while struggling with mental illness, and as the paint flows and shifts, my mind becomes quiet, so my artworks are direct representations of pushing all of the voices and feelings inside my mind out onto the canvas, where the chaos transforms into beautiful, emotional imagery, leaving the mind silent and content, for a time.
While "Reaching Corals," "Cascade," and "Paisley" were created using various techniques, they all encompass a specific theme that all of my paintings do, and that is movement and energy. Specifically, it is about the movement of the paint across the canvas, and how manipulating it in different ways, with different techniques, using different tools, there is generally some movement that occurs to create the patterns that you see.
"Reaching Corals" depicts just that, two opposite pieces of coral reaching across a black plane, though never fully touching. "Cascade" is about what lies beneath the surface, waiting to be exposed to the light. And "Paisley" shows twists and swirls that move together in a dance of color.
With the artworks embodying movement and energy, they present visual representations of another, particular aspect of my life—living with chronic pain. I suffer from fibromyalgia, and the daily pain and mobility issues I experience due to this disorder affect various aspects of my life and permeate everything I do and experience. The purpose of creating these works is to show I still have the ability to facilitate and capture movement and energy on the canvas, while my body is often stiff, numb, and in pain, so physical movement is limited.
While "Reaching Corals," "Cascade," and "Paisley" were created using various techniques, they all encompass a specific theme that all of my paintings do, and that is movement and energy. Specifically, it is about the movement of the paint across the canvas, and how manipulating it in different ways, with different techniques, using different tools, there is generally some movement that occurs to create the patterns that you see.
"Reaching Corals" depicts just that, two opposite pieces of coral reaching across a black plane, though never fully touching. "Cascade" is about what lies beneath the surface, waiting to be exposed to the light. And "Paisley" shows twists and swirls that move together in a dance of color.
With the artworks embodying movement and energy, they present visual representations of another, particular aspect of my life—living with chronic pain. I suffer from fibromyalgia, and the daily pain and mobility issues I experience due to this disorder affect various aspects of my life and permeate everything I do and experience. The purpose of creating these works is to show I still have the ability to facilitate and capture movement and energy on the canvas, while my body is often stiff, numb, and in pain, so physical movement is limited.
Matthew J. Andrews
"After the Hurricane"
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“After the Hurricane” finds its origin in a 2014 trip to Hawaii, which coincided with the landfall of Hurricane Iselle. We prepared for the worst in our hotel room and felt an immense release of pressure when the storm passed and we were relatively unscathed. We emerged to find a world that was quieter and a little battered, but with the sun impossibly bright and the day alive with potential. We went to the southern tip of the island, which also happens to be the southernmost point in the United States, and stared out for a long time over an endless expanse of ocean. More storms would come, of course, but every one we survived was an invitation to savor the moments of calm in between.
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