Poetry Reading: Sunday, Aug 28th, 4:00 pm
Poets Lisa Olstein, Cecily Parks, Susan Briante, and Taisia Kitaiskaia will read their poems inspired by the music boxes in the exhibit as well as other works.
This exhibit features a series of paintings and small-scale mechanical sculptures based on popular folk tales. Collectively they examine the underlying moral messages of fairy tales and their effect on child’s psyche. Each sculpture is comprised of a painted wooden box with moving figures, as ... view more »
Poetry Reading: Sunday, Aug 28th, 4:00 pm
Poets Lisa Olstein, Cecily Parks, Susan Briante, and Taisia Kitaiskaia will read their poems inspired by the music boxes in the exhibit as well as other works.
This exhibit features a series of paintings and small-scale mechanical sculptures based on popular folk tales. Collectively they examine the underlying moral messages of fairy tales and their effect on child’s psyche. Each sculpture is comprised of a painted wooden box with moving figures, as well as a wind-up mechanism that plays a melody custom-composed for each scene by composer Yevgeniy Sharlat.
In their modern version familiar to every child, Western fairy tales tend to sugar coat their original import. Yet even watered down, they speak of older men and women terrorizing young children, fathers leaving their children in the woods to die, and stepmothers feeding their husbands’ biological children poisoned apples. The more graphic tales often contain an undercurrent of violence, incest, and sexual abuse, and even the milder ones teach children to be subordinate, to never question authority, to blame themselves for their misfortune, and accept their fate.
Included in this exhibit are poems by six poets, written specifically for each scene. Presented alongside each music box, some of these poems re-imagine the tales while others delve deeper into possible meanings and/or lessons.
About the Poets:
Susan Briante, the poet of “Falls First”: The Kenyon Review calls her most recent book The Market Wonders “masterful at every turn.” She is also the author of the poetry collections Pioneers in the Study of Motion and Utopia Minus (an Academy of American Poets Notable Book of 2011), both from Ahsahta Press. Briante is the Associate Professor of creative writing and literature at the University of Arizona.
Taisia Kitaiskaia, the poet of “Thumbelina”: Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as Crazyhorse, Pleiades, jubilat, Guernica, Gulf Coast, and Fence. She is the recipient of a Michener Center for Writers fellowship and the author of Literary Witches, forthcoming from Seal Press in Fall 2017.
Lisa Olstein, the poet of “Bremen”: is the author of three books of poems, most recently, LITTLE STRANGER. A new collection, LATE EMPIRE, is forthcoming in 2017. Olstein is a member of the poetry faculty at the University of Texas at Austin.
Cecily Parks, the poet of “Hansel and Gretel”: Author of the poetry collections Field Folly Snow (University of Georgia Press, 2008) and O’Nights (Alice James Books, 2015), and editor of the anthology The Echoing Green: Poems of Fields, Meadows, and Grasses (Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets, 2016). Parks teaches at Texas State University.
About the other two poets:
Noelle Kocot, the poet of “Sleeping Beauty”: the author of seven books of poetry, she has won numerous awards for her work. She is a Poet Laureate of Pemberton Borough, New Jersey.
Jane Miller, the poet of “Whether the Goat is a Metaphor”: A visiting Poet at The University of Texas Michener Center; Miller is the recipient of a Wallace Award for Poetry, as well as a Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. Recent publications include Thunderbird, a book-length sequence of short poems from Copper Canyon Press, and Midnights, poetry and prose poems published with Saturnalia Press. Who Is Trixie the Trasher? And Other Questions is forthcoming.
This project is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development.
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