A Poem for Elian Gonzalez by John Farris Is Contained in a Pickle Jar in a David Hammons Exhibition
How many things can a poem do?
Everything.
“Sheet Music for Broken Windpipe,” a collaboration between visual artist David Hammons and poet John Farris, is currently on display at A Gathering of the Tribes Gallery, 285 E. Third Street, in Loisaida, New York. The installation is a monument to the tragedy of the death of the 21-year-old West African immigrant to New York City, Amadou Diallo, and is built around six Farris poems that swing at the end of hangman’s knots. Central to the exhibit, hanging from a steampipe with transparent tape, is a pickle jar which has been filled with the voice of the poet reciting a poem on the predicament of Elian Gonzalez, another questionable immigrant, who might represent the voice of hope.
The following is the only extant transcript of said poem.
SALUD, ELIAN GONZALEZ!
Elian Gonzalez--having never been to Cuba
I don’t know where you came from
except you floated into the arms of a fisherman
from the sea your mother
consigned herself to for love,
providing you with no more than an inner tube
and enough presence of mind to float on air
with no toys for three days: it
could have been the lotus
of which you would be the jewel: om mani padme ma
would be your laughter: om mani padme ma how you arrived
on Thanksgiving like an avatar, protagonist
of a fairy tale with Janet Reno
as fairy godmother: how much you have to tell us
about the night sea and stars.
--John Farris, 2000
- John Farris is the griot of the Lower East Side. He is the author of It’s Not About Time (Fly by Night Press, 1992).
- At thisisart.com, you can listen to & watch a poem read by John Farris on the Windows Media Player.
- A series of 10 1996 poems by Farris is online at NeeNas Cyber-Gallery.
- Farris is also the editor of
Digitas: The New York Digital Review of Arts and Literature, a multimedia journal published on CD-ROM.
- David Hammons is a multimedia artist whose works visible on the Net include “Skillets in the Closet” (1988), “African American Flag” (1989) & “Untitled” folded American dollar bill (1993).
