Jorrell Watkins
A response to 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?"
Process Notes
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.
Responses to Malcolm Corley's Work
Jorrell Watkins
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.
