Donna J. Snyder
Donna Snyder, founder of the Tumblewords Project, has published her work in such journals as Puerto Del Sol and Sin Fronteras, among others across the western US. She has presented hundreds of creative writing workshops as an artist in the schools in the El Paso/Las Cruces region, various local literary festivals, and as a Tumblewords Poet. She has been a featured artist in such performance events and venues as the Taos Poetry Circus, the Border Book Festival, El Paso Museum of Art’s Museo-Literati reading series, the Branigan Library Authors Series, Umbilicus Mundi, the South Broadway Cultural Center in Albuquerque, the Out on a Limb series at the Santa Fe Actor’s Theater, and the Texas Kick-Ass Poets tour. Her work as an artist, cultural and political organizer, and grassroots lawyer has been featured in articles in the El Paso Times, Bridge Review, Albuquerque Journal, Stanton Street, Alamogordo Daily News, and the Las Cruces Sun. She has worked 22 years as an advocate for immigrants, farm workers, garment workers, indigenous people, and people with mental and physical disabilities. In 2002 she won the Emma Tenayuca prize for her human rights work.
Cinnamon tea
Sweet oatmeal and cinnamon tea
wait for me each morning when I wake
no matter what snarls curled around our throats the night before
Or maybe agua de melón and toast sit there
next to the napkins from Guatamala
Faded temptations to smile
To rub my finger across your inner wrist
and sit awhile
When I get older
and all I know now gone forever from my grasp
I will tell the young ones who care to hear
I knew love and love knew me
Its name was oatmeal
toast
and cinnamon tea
Eve expelled from the Garden by an angel
written from Susan Klahr’s series of paintings
Eve anguished as she walks into the world
deprived of Eden
deprived of the understanding and support of Adam
deprived of intimacy with her God
and all for the desire for knowledge
Eve unaware that all anguish is transitory
Eve unaware that God & Adam were the intimates
to the exclusion of her and her kind
Eve unaware that the wisdom of the world
brought the gift of light, sweet light
Behind her, angelic vengeance
Behind her the weakness of Man and his fate
Behind her the dark verdancy of oblivion
But before her, before her (if she only knew)
wisdom gained from the flesh of fruit would lead her
to the benevolent caress
the delight of dance
the healing power of flesh moving to the sound of drums
Chilling Effect
I want to write
About being silenced & scrutinized
& at risk, but do it like Darwin’s daughter.
In my dreams, jeweled words wrangle sense & image.
Sun-shot thought champions dissent, but anything I say can and will be
used against me.
Grackles become witches, conjure brilliance and cajole
brutes along the way, their black bird reflections winged
pools of evanescent jet.
The path ahead is made of rubies
each stone a drop of my own blood. Oxygen molecules glow
like gems in each live hemoglobin racing through veins of sky.
Where is the vigor of astringency, the vinegar homilies
to warn of Cassandra’s oblivion?
Where are the bereaved
clad in weeds of aubergine and black?
In the garden there is a skein of broken limbs,
bound for burial. Avert your eyes and pray for solace, the sweet
bitterness of grapefruit marmalade that wrenches
a tongue from slumber.
from Amy M. Lam Wai Man’s “Bodysite: Bodyscapes
sun/moon
in chinese calligraphy
together they make brilliant
bright
or enlightened
the two together light the way to the next place
shapes shift in the brilliance
the boundary between you and me blurs
each of us bright as stars in our several identities
ink washes over us under the moonlight
the center of gravity moves between us
never in a straight line
my body is made up of so much water
you swim like an eel to the water’s edge
resurface and find me waiting
my body is painted by the play of light
dark then light
then dark
then light
there is no center here
deep in my belly
there’s a place there waiting
I paint my body and give up control
dark then light
then dark
then light
we approach the edge without thinking “how is it?”
or “how should it be?”
there is movement of text upon cloud dragon paper
“it is not distress
it is distance, mere distance”
this is not Chinese
neither in content
nor in execution
