A Guest Series Curated by Nicole Rollender. Intro to project here.

Call and Response: “Metempsychosis”

CALL:

El Salvadoran poet Claribel Alegria, who has written nine books of poetry and prose, has long been a voice for self-determination in her homeland, even though she lived in self-imposed exile in North Africa with her family for a time. Alegria’s long relationship with her husband, Darwin “Bud” Flakoll – spiritual, extremely intimate, devoted to art and dedicated to humanitarian and social justice activities – started as a three-month fiery courtship and a quick marriage and grew into a rich, collaborative life of testimonio. Shortly before Alegria and Flakoll were to go on a trip to southern Asia in 1995, Flakoll passed away. Alegria traveled to Singapore, Bangkok and Jakarta with her husband’s soul, as she has said, and wrote her poetry collection, Sorrow, about that trip – and her posthumous dialogue with her husband.

For this call-and-response, I chose the poem “Metempsychosis,” which captures Alegria’s dual emotions of grief/wanting to die with her husband and acceptance/wanting to continue living, in such spare, short poems that offer wide, open spaces as the point of departure for reader response: Continue reading →