“feathering, or // on not feeling queer enough in queer spaces”
Download “feathering, or // on not feeling queer enough in queer spaces”
Collaborators’ Q&A
What inspired you to bring your work to Broadsided?
Poet Livia Meneghin: I’ve been an admirer of Broadsided for a long time, not only for their uplifting of short poems and collaboration with visual art, but mainly for the celebration of poetry out in the world. I’ve never believed writing to be a solitary act, and I love the emphasis on literally bringing your words into your community.
What drew you to create a visual response to this poem, in particular?
Artist Michele L’Heureux: The title of the poem resonated with me immediately, as I often have the experience of not feeling queer enough in queer spaces. Also, I happen to be obsessed with birds, so the fact that the poem references flocks of birds to articulate this feeling was so delightful to me. I jumped at the chance to engage with this poem visually.
How did this poem come to be?
Poet Livia Meneghin: As a person who discovered her queerness as an adult (and who is still figuring things out), I find myself wanting to believe queer spaces are my new, safe community. Unfortunately, I often still don’t necessarily feel comfortable, like I belong. feathering is a somewhat invented word of mine, referring to the process of coming into oneself, no matter what that looks like. No two queer people are alike, and that should be celebrated.
How did this image come to be?
Artist Michele L’Heureux: The birds in the poem are so easy to visualize that I knew I would paint something representational. I decided to focus on the bluebirds so I researched photographs of packs of bluebirds and used one of them as a reference for this painting, which was done with watercolor and ink. I imagined the “I” in the poem as a ghost bird, lurking in the shadows, invisible to the others, so I rendered that bird in black and grey to differentiate it from the colorful birds in the foreground.
What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem? Does the artist’s response make you see the poem differently?
Poet Livia Meneghin: I adore Michele’s response to the poem, and can really feel the character of the little gray bird behind all the bluebirds. I feel now that my poem really has a narrative, which I am grateful for because the poem originated from my own story. Michele’s art inspires me to perhaps write more fiction!
Did anything shift for you or come into new light as you began working on your visual response?
Artist Michele L’Heureux: I kept drawing on my own experience and the words in the poem (“fog me into smallness,” “quiet through the night”) to figure out how to represent the alienated bird about which the poem is about. As I tried a few things, this notion of a ghost bird of sorts emerged.
What question would you like to ask your collaborator? (we will print your answers, too!)
Poet to Artist: Did you look for real bluebirds as models for your art, turn to still images on a computer or in a book, or could you conjure them from imagination!?
Artist Michele L’Heureux: In this case, I used a digital image as a reference for the drawing. How I would love to draw a pack of bluebirds in the wild!
Artist to Poet: What made you choose birds to represent queerness?
Poet Livia Meneghin: I’ve adored birds (and animals) for a long time and now enjoy very amateur birding as a way to destress. My poetry is grounded in the natural world because I fundamentally believe that I am not separate from it. I chose birds for this poem in reflection on Pride, a loud, colorful parade I still have not attended. I’m not confident that I personally would enjoy it or feel like I fit in. This is not to say that Pride is not a safe, wonderful, and needed celebration for some. Queer spaces are often designed, consciously or unconsciously, with patriarchal and capitalist code; and as Audre Lorde has taught us, the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.
When you consider the full folio of work from this issue (see the “related broadsides” links on the left), what questions, observations, or connections arise for you?
Poet Livia Meneghin: There’s an emotional charge of courage enveloping self-knowing that I see across many of the poems and artwork in this folio. It takes intimacy and specificity to sing an ode to a part of yourself, recall a memory, or name your true self on the page.
Artist Michele L’Heureux: I like the references to things lost, missing, or lurking in the shadows that show up in at least a few of the works. I’m curious how artists decide what to respond to in a poem given how rich and varied the imagery can be in a single work.
Describe your ideal “Vectorization”—where, in your wildest dreams, would you most like to see this broadside posted in the world?
Poet Livia Meneghin: Wow, wildest dreams…this is a bit personal, but I have not been to my hometown in Italy for years. It would require some courage, but seeing my poem there would be something special.
Artist Michele L’Heureux: Any queer gathering place–coffee shop, community space, club–where anyone who feels left out may come across it and feel seen.
If this Broadsided collaboration were a type of weather, what would it be?
Poet Livia Meneghin: What a fun question! I’d say a sun-shower, it’s been delightful, nourishing, and creates a rainbow.
Artist Michele L’Heureux: A warm foggy afternoon.
Do you have a favorite, generative prompt for artists or writers you’d like to share?
Poet Livia Meneghin: List making! For example, write down (or draw, paint, etc.) 10 things within reach that delight you, or 10 places where you feel relief. Then take one to expand, to conjure memories and associations from. You can always return to your list if you lose steam.
Artist Michele L’Heureux: Write or make something that describes a time when you’ve felt unseen.
Read any good books lately?
Poet Livia Meneghin: Thankfully, yes! Hanif Abdurraqib’s beautiful There’s Always This Year; Oliver Baez Bendorf’s brilliant Consider the Rooster; Patrycja Humienik’s We Contain Landscapes.
Artist Michele L’Heureux: I’m a lover of all things Portuguese, and I’ve read many Jose Saramago novels, most recently Death at Intervals, which tells the story of a community where people stop dying. At first, this is celebrated but very soon it causes a lot of chaos and suffering.
Seen any good art lately?
Poet Livia Meneghin: I saw two absolutely stunning films on a plane back from Amsterdam last month: Sing Sing and Nickel Boys. I’m still floored just thinking of them. Also a gorgeous multi-screen installation in Stedelijk Museum called “Manifestation #54 Shifting / Spirit / Time” by Julianknxx.
Artist Michele L’Heureux: I just saw the Leonora Carrington exhibition at the Rose Art Museum, which places her as a central figure in the Surrealist movement. There are some very wild and creepy works in the show that I loved.