Issue 33: Earth| poem by Jesse Sorrell | sculpture by Sorcha McNamara

"You are entering your death. You will be alive at the end of this poem."

Welcome to KHÔRA, a dynamic online arts space produced in collaboration with Lidia Yuknavitch’s Corporeal Writing. Visit our Archive to read previous issues. Scroll down if you’d like your work to be considered for future issues.

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Sorcha McNamara, Lazy Eye/Minty, oil, perspex, laminate and wood, 7.48 x 6.89 x 0.43 inches, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.

Earth by Jesse Sorrell | sculpture by Sorcha McNamara

You are entering your death. 
You will be alive at the end of this poem. 

From the center of the earth sounds an old story: 

They will be of star and clay. 
They will weep emerald tears. 
Time will keep holding its stare. 

A silver night is casting from the horizon netting the sun and moon. Sky and stone are mirrors of mica. Stone is softening into a meadow in front of you. A sea voice is rising from behind you, ricocheting between the stones, traversing your back body, nestling into the crag of your shoulder blade. The ocean is waving you forward. An ancient hum is pawing through your back muscles, rounding your shoulder, lumbering along your clavicle, reaching across your ribs,  burrowing into the third chamber of your mud mossed heart where the poetry is all fur and soil.  

There is no fire in this cave carrying the scent of 
honey berries & salmon. Time can see in the dark. 
An owl blinks her yellow eyes. The earth spins… 

Read Earth by Jesse Sorrell.    

Sorcha McNamara, Lazy Eye/Minty, oil, perspex, laminate and wood, 7.48 x 6.89 x 0.43 inches, 2021. Courtesy of the artist.

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Jesse Sorrell writes to listen between physical and subtle form. He offers spiritual care in community-based, pediatric hospice & palliative care, bereavement, and other therapeutic settings. He lives surrounded by trees and animals in Chapel Hill, NC and is often found in water. His writing is thrilled to make home in KHÔRA.

Sorcha McNamara works as a painter, or more accurately as a maker of things. But even ‘maker’ isn’t really the right word. It’s too organic, too suggestive of the handmade, or the nobility of a craft. Instead, she is more of a conductor, a composer—the person in front of the orchestra waving their arms about, whose function and purpose you may question, but you know they are important for the stability of the whole piece.

Based in the West of Ireland, Sorcha holds an MA in Art + Research Collaboration from Dún Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design & Technology (2024), and a BA in Painting from Limerick School of Art & Design (2019). Her works have been exhibited in Ireland and internationally, in Tokyo, Lisbon and London. She has previously been selected for residencies at Totaldobze Art Centre, Riga (supported by Ormston House, Limerick and the Artist-Run Network Europe project, 2022); JOYA AiR, Almeria (2022); Tangent Projects, Barcelona (2021); and PADA Studios, Lisbon (2020). Her practice is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.

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Swim around in KHÔRA.

Artists and Writers

We’re looking for features and our future teams! To enter KHÔRA’s collaborative waters:

1. Writers, read about KHÔRA’s 500 Words here.

2. Artists, send your artwork to KHÔRA's Images here.

Team-based, collaborative, and curated, KHÔRA is a form that is continually opening. We invite you to join us in sustaining it together. We don't believe in rejections. KHÔRA’s 500 Words is about considering how multiple voices can be heard; how frameworks, traditions, and projects can inform each other; and how new perspectives emerge from collaboration and openness. If you are a visual artist or interested in sharing your artwork or images, ready about KHÔRA’s Images here.

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. This doesn’t need to be a completed piece—think of it like a sample of your work at any length up to 500 words.

Once you send 500 Words, your work will remain in our inclusive and expansive space. You can send 500 Words more than once—there’s no limit to how many times you can send us new work; just no repeats, please. KHÔRA doesn’t publish previously published work, but feel free to share any 500 words you want as a sample (published or unpublished).

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With galactic gratitude,

Leigh Hopkins
and the Corporeal/KHÔRA squad

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