“Choke”
Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet Katherine Fallon: In looking back over this poem in the midst of the Black Lives Matter protests, I am struck by the title, of course, which feels both timely and entirely inappropriate. I intended to meditate on silencing, particularly through the lens of femininity and queerness, but that silencing takes on a new meaning in this context… Artist Millian Pham Lien Giang: As an artist, I work to make visible the effects of oppressive structures on the body through my art. This theme leads me to use signifiers rooted in cultural, social, and individual history as a layered intersectional experience. Square Not: Durian Flowers and Dragon Fruits, the art for this broadside, is a composition about the harsh reality of being a cycle breaker in the face of outmoded tradition and structures. The knot in the composition is not a true knot, and is used to signify the hope for eventual escape and liberation of the next generation.
Poet Katherine Fallon‘s poems have appeared in Colorado Review, Permafrost and others. Her chapbook, The Toothmakers’ Daughters, is available through Finishing Line Press. Artist Millian Pham Lien Giang is a visual artist and educator who focuses on many modes of visual art perception in her practice.