Tag Archive
On Photographing My Mother
Nonfiction by Sara Dailey
In the few pictures there are of her as a child, her smile is a fixed gleam, tongue swallowing both sun and her father’s secret, how a wolf could wear the clothes of a man, his rumpled shirts and scent of farm, have the same big hands that killed chickens and crushed berries into blackberry wine. Looking at the oldest of the photos, taken when she was only five or six, feels to me like staring at a ghost. That girl has gone from her—like a chameleon might shed its skin, this second self has also been shed, like she’s tried to shed all traces of her rural upbringing, her knowledge of farm life and poverty in equal. »
Features
Call for Interviews: DO Talk to Strangers
The Splinter Generation is now accepting submissions of interviews with people you wouldn’t ever talk to. Find someone you wouldn’t ordinarily meet, or someone you disagree with on almost everything and have dinner, or a drink, or an email exchange. Record it, transcribe it, edit it down, and send it in.
Why? Remember when you were. »
Poems by Lauren Schmidt
Her Name is Sarah
When Randy drifted in for dinner with her baby
tangled in the rosary scars of her arms,
pressed against the dust of her breast,
everyone wanted to see. They softened
their eyes, their smiles, the way people do
when they look on a baby sleeping,
a baby who has not cried in two days,
a baby whose eyes ooze. »
Megan Hildebrandt Talks Art, Humor, and Cancer at 25
Being diagnosed with cancer and experiencing chemotherapy at age 25 dramatically changed the priorities and course of my work. Prior to this illness, I made narrative-based images about local history and my neighbors. Now, the stories in the work have emerged directly from my own body and memory, and the history is my own. »