THREADS AND POETRY by Olena Jennings
The Author, Olena Jennings at the Threads Exhibit in August 2023 Photograph by Ged Merino
The Threads exhibition, open until October 22, 2023 at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago, features textile art pieces created in response to poems.
I could feel my poem connecting with the art of the Threads exhibition as I read at its opening on August 26, 2023. The threads were pulling themselves through my body. Julian Kytasty’s masterful playing of a traditional Ukrainian instrument, the bandura, moved through me too. A word wrapped itself around each note. Each note wrapped itself around a word. The red yarn around me created “Boundaries,” which was the title of Aze Ong’s piece.
The Threads project started with an idea Virlana Tkacz of Yara Arts Group and I conceived in NYC. Ged Merino joined the curators and organized exhibitions at Bliss on Bliss Art Projects, Flux Factory, and Topaz Arts. After that, Merino introduced the project to Maleza Proyectos in Bogota, Colombia curated by Alejandra Fonseca and to the Drawing Room in Manila, Philippines curated by Carlos Quijon, Jr. Its latest iteration at the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art is co-curated by Adrienne Kochman of the Ukrainian Institute, Virlana Tkacz, and Merino of Bliss on Bliss Art Projects.
Poetry is an integral part of this exhibit, and I had the honor of serving as its poetry curator. I bring to it my experience as founder and curator of Poets of Queens reading series and press, an organization that brings community to poetry in Queens. I chose a set of poems that the textile artists responded to. Since the exhibit began in Queens, we began with Queens poets. The piece by Isabella Lopez in which a father is absent from a family portrait captures Queens poet’s Pichchenda Bao’s poem “My Mother Tells Me to Build a Monument to Her Father.” It begins the show in Chicago, the first piece that viewers witness.
The show opened to a performance in a packed room. I stood in front of the audience and read my poem “American Morning” from my book The Age of Secrets and other poems from the Threads: Poems to Inspire Art book we put together to showcase the work of poets in the exhibition beyond what is included in the exhibition.
Art by Isabella Lopez, Poem by Pichchenda Bao, Photograph by Ged Merino
Here is one of those poems:
INTO ETERNITY
She is everywhere.
He is sweeping pieces of her bone
that turned to dust
when the building
was bombed, her bed engulfed,
her solitude violated.
She had been between the sheets
in her underwear, writing in her journal
and tracing the shapes on her comforter,
her finger hovering over the fabric
as if she was doing embroidery,
a pattern her grandmother taught her.
When she was still a body, she often saw
him with a broom,
in front of a cafe,
brushing at cigarette butts
against a background of bright paint
that matched the sky.
It made her think of her day dreams.
He could sweep up their conversations,
the words they held in common.
The color yellow.
Zhovte
The bright sun eating away the bone.
Zhovte
A sunflower blossomed in endless fields.
Zhovte.
Her body became forever like this.
Artists: Magdalena Arguelles, Julianna Canal, Isabella Kiser, Waldemart Klyzuko, Jaroslava Kuchma, Isabella Lopez, Ged Merino, Katherine Nuñez, Bob Nuestro, Aze Ong, Miguel Puyat
Poets: Pichchenda Bao, Rosebud Ben-Oni, Michelle Esquivias, Sherese Francis, Olena Jennings, Ananda Lima, Floraime Oliveros Pantaleta, Wanda Phipps, Virlana Tkacz, Serhiy Zhadan
Olena Jennings is the author of the poetry collection The Age of Secrets (Lost Horse Press, 2022) and the chapbook Memory Project. Her novel Temporary Shelter was released in 2021 from Cervena Barva Press.
Her translation from Ukrainian with Oksana Lutsyshyna of Nobody Knows Us Here, and We Don’t Know Anyone by Kateryna Kalytko was released in September 2022 from Lost Horse Press. Her translation of Vasyl Makhno’s collection Paper Bridge was released in October 2022 from Plamen Press.
Her translation with the author of Yuliya Musakovska's The God of Freedom is forthcoming from Arrowsmith Press. Her textile art has been shown at Bliss on Bliss Art Projects and the NYC Poetry Festival. She is the founder and curator of Poets of Queens.