Self-Portrait
Gadjo
trip-wired jaw

Click on this direct link but please peruse the entire issue .

Notes:
Andrea: Self-Portrait went through so many incarnations, I can't even begin to count them though there is evidence somewhere. For me the image of broken type is visual, a portrait made up of actual broken type.

Gadjo was inspired by this film Gadjo dilo that Mark and I saw years ago at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema. I think the film's title loosely translates to crazy outsider. Around the same time, I was also reading Bury Me Standing. I had happened across this book because I'm always on the look-out for books my mom would like (she reads 5 books at a time). My mom is fascinated by the mass human migrations and nomadic movement. She always talked about the gypsies so when I saw Bury Me Standing in the bookstore, I knew it was for her.

Unfortunately, she wasn't that taken with this book (she didn't like Devil in the White City either) but I was and hence this poem.

trip-wired jaw - I'm really not sure how this poem came about. When I read it now, the only memory I pull at is a childhood story my paternal grandma told me about a neighbor down the street from her, who contracted lockjaw and his whole body shut down until he was dribbling on himself (that was how my grandma put it). I'm not sure what that has to do with this poem but that's all I got for now. :)