Dear Emily — | sending and receiving | Rituals | Goosewing | The Trackers | Figure Study 12
"The ocean regulates me. Sets me to its tides. Asks me to surrender to its vastness, holds my body when I enter it without letting go..."
Welcome to Khôra, a dynamic online arts space produced in collaboration with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. Visit our Archive to read previous issues.
In Issue 20, we’re back with new work from our team of curated writers Amra Brooks, Shin Yu Pai, Lindsay Quintanilla, and Debbie Weingarten; and artists Sui Park, Erica Svec, and Mandy Cano Villalobos.
There’s a good chance that you know Issue 20’s Featured Writer Marisa Siegel from her time as editor-at-large for The Rumpus. Marisa’s essay “Inherited Anger” appears in the anthology Burn It Down (Seal Press, 2019) and her debut poetry chapbook, FIXED STARS, is out now from Burrow Press. Marisa has helped to launch the careers of many writers and artists, so it’s an honor to share four of her “Emily poems” in our current issue. Marisa’s poems are paired with artwork by Briana Finegan.
Dear Emily,
I am not
writing to you.
We both
know why
the bird hovers.
I make a new code.
Language is
one kind of key;
you question
the decision
to take
yourself away…
Issue 20’s Featured Artist Danielle Ezzo is an interdisciplinary artist and writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Her practice often begins with photography as an entry point and leans into new approaches to image-making, the shortcomings of the medium, and the slippages between innovation and understanding.
Danielle says of her series, Phantom Limb:
“This project speaks to the body and how we view ourselves through the lens of culture. Instead of removing physical attributes — a bruise, a tattoo, a beauty mark — I highlight only these features. Each portrait is a portrait of “imperfections.” By reversing commercial anesthetization, each image becomes a bold statement proudly finding beauty in what is unique about the individual…”
Artists and Writers!
To enter Khôra’s collaborative waters:
Writers, read about Khôra’s 500 Words here.
Artists, send your artwork to Khôra's Images here.
Many thanks to all of you who have sent us work. Your words/images will always remain active in Khôra's ocean, and you won’t ever receive a notice of rejection from us. We know this process is not perfect; we wish to stay open to the possibility that at any point, your work will be a fit for a curated issue or team collaboration.
Check out the highlights below!
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With galactic gratitude,
Leigh
Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/Khôra squad
Issue 20 Highlights
Rituals by Lindsay Quintanilla | Artwork by Mandy Cano Villalobos
July in Vegas is a sweltering, feverish month. The days are long and airless. The heat sears itself onto everything, impossible to escape, almost impossible to keep breathing. The mountains are covered with dry dust. The flowers that bloomed during spring shrivel and die. Cacti are one of the few plants that remain alive and I always admired their toughness…
sending and receiving by Shin Yu Pai | Artwork by Shin Yu Pai
instead of marking the anniversary
of the day we were wed
with dinner, we take our child
to the annual lantern festival
held at the manmade lake
where we remember the victims
of nuclear bombing and those
we lost the year before…
The Trackers by Debbie Weingarten | Artwork by Erica Svec
The dog is nowhere to be found. On the first day of his disappearance, the boys fan out through the woods, searching. Summer has burst open like a fruit, every tree cloaked in that perfect July green — long-legged oaks, buckeye trunks crawling with Virginia creeper, star-shaped maple leaves rustling overhead like papier-mâché. Ben calls the dog’s name and Kenny whistles a kind of personal morse code…
Goosewing by Amra Brooks | Artwork by Sui Park
The ocean regulates me. Sets me to its tides. Asks me to surrender to its vastness, holds my body when I enter it without letting go. I remember a day at Point Dume in Malibu with friends, a big swell, but a gentle crash. We all got in and did butchered water ballet, laughing hard enough to choke. A pod of dolphins passed right next to us, my whole face a smile. A moment I try to get back…
Khôra will be back next month!
Amazing concept. What a beautiful examination of the body from a different lens than the objectifying one we’ve basically been bathed in since birth. I love it!