POETRY: for Otoniya Okot Bitek
ISABELLA WANG | FEBRUARY 15, 2022
forgetting’s solidarity
is the body remembering
to tie a knot along the polyvagal rivers
of histories some share
witness the body work
of witnessing – a body of work
the collaboration of forms
collaboration of the senses
beneath parabolic time
is the space of non-linear time
one shares a photograph
and counts down the 100 days
reflection’s strength tying
is body work
city heartbeat and footnote rhythms
walking water’s audible syntax
in the rain when the ground at dew / due
/ dawn recognizes their kin
Isabella Wang is the author of the chapbook, On Forgetting a Language (2019), and the debut poetry collection, Pebble Swing (2021). Among other recognitions, she has been shortlisted for Arc Poetry Magazine’s Poem of the Year Award, The Malahat Review’s Far Horizons Contest and Long Poem Contest, and was the youngest writer to be shortlisted twice for The New Quarterly’s Edna Staebler Essay Contest. Her poetry and prose have appeared in over thirty literary journals and three anthologies. She is pursuing a double-major in English and World Literature at Simon Fraser University, and is an Editor at Room magazine.
This poem was shared during the writing workshop series, Shifting Perspectives with Stephen Collis and Isabella Wang, which was organized alongside the exhibition The view from here: Selections from the SFU Art Collection, and is in response to the installation un/settled, a collaboration between poet Otoniya J. Okot Bitek and artist Chantal Gibson.
