Poet Jorrell Watkins responds to "Leaves" by Malcolm Corley

                   Leaves

They'll fall, don't bother saving them calm.
JUST IN: lush world renounces its status as "lush."

It implodes commemorative fractal lightsnow.
tickets inside stemma's lips—check outside
there's plenty doormat green. Please off grass

Nevermind countless ‘passers whisk/drift/float→→             ↓
wildflower bed...little janky, END sheets itch plus

eye-scald white lurking, cursing canopy life bleak.
What's the matter chlorophyll? Have you know

feeling left? Inner mound, nothing's distinguishable
from decay. [holdyourselftogether] A ways a wage,

O' waste away—that's no pillow—another crushes,
crush them. How naive! Let loose. Cheek-jangling CO₂ 
freshness crisp—it cuts. Safety scissored Earth-tone shawl,

looks so good on world crinkled. Underneath madnest
Chicken feet-shaped twigs, diddle-daddling twin bulbs
speculating, "what's all the fuss? Have they no green?" 

At the age of three, Malcolm Corley (b. 1999) was diagnosed with autism. At about the same time, he began to draw the sketches from the TV show, Blues Clues. Recreations of Dr. Seuss’s illustrations came next, some of which he drew from memory.

In February, 2019, his sketch “Jazz Hands” was published in Hot Metal Bridge, and eight of his portraits were published in Up the Staircase. “Kiana” appeared on the Fusion Art website in March, 2019; two months later, “Closet” was published in Penn Review. His art has been shown at the Ware Center in Lancaster, PA, and two juried international exhibits/sales: Art of Possibility at the Courage Kenny Rehab Center in Minneapolis and the 2019 and 2020 Art Ability Exhibitions at Bryn Mawr Rehab Hospital, where one of his pieces received an honorable mention prize. In addition, he has had solo shows at the Winter Center and the Emerald Foundation, also in Lancaster. He is a nominee for Lancaster PA’s 2021 Black Artist Waystation Project.

“Untitled #1,” an acrylic painting Malcolm created in AP Art class at Hempfield High School, was one of 15 works chosen by The Kennedy Center’s 2019 VSA program. Malcolm was the youngest artist to be recognized, and the only one with no post-secondary art training. “Untitled #1” was also chosen, along with “Hoodie Self-portrait,” for the CRIP Ritual art show in Toronto, Ontario, currently scheduled for January, 2022. “Untitled #1” currently forms the “T” in an installation of the word, UNITY at the Kennedy Center; the exhibit will be in place through Feb. 28, 2021.

Jorrell Watkins is a writer and martial artist from Richmond, VA. He is a 2020-21 Fulbright Grant Award recipient for Japan, an alum of Hampshire College and the Iowa Writer’s Workshop. His disability inclusive play, Meet us at the Horizon, was produced by Combined Efforts Co. for its 2019 world premiere. His chapbook, If Only the Sharks Would Bite, was selected by Aimee Nezhukumatathil as winner of the inaugural Desert Pavilion Chapbook Series in Poetry. 

PROCESS NOTES

What allured me to, Leaves, was the intricate layers, colors, and shapes of the work. Initially, the white and gray spaces dominated my gaze before I found the complexity of colors (green, blue, maroon, beige, yellow, orange, etc.) that were present. Furthermore, the shapes disoriented me yet felt precise and orderly. As I spent time with, Leaves, I realized that this ekphrasis was very much hearing this work's perspective on today's world, particularly on the pandemic and economic crisis. It spoke to the chaos that we are all experiencing and revealed chaos as a form "nature" if not nature itself.