Taylor Hancey - 2023

Artist's Statement

What interested me most in this semester was observing and watching how people react and take action to the climate crisis. I noticed that there is a lot of pessimism and it’s easy to see why. Unfortunately this approach isn’t helpful and in a way it acts as an excuse to not take action and to let harmful events occur without a means to help stop them. There is also the action of blaming others for the climate issues when really, we are all part of the problem. And of course, there is the hardship of closed minds that prefer to continue environmentally destructive lifestyles while thinking that a better future for the planet and the living organisms on it is still possible. I decided to write 3 poems (2 black out poetry) that touch on each of these three topics.

"Gifts and Offerings"

The storms come every Wednesday evening
and are reborn in the blue shades of Thursday morning.
The thunder of gunk jammed wheels on cold asphalt turns the air into thunder
Particles of rocks crack like lightning under the heels of neighbors, still dressed in their
bathrobes and a white crust of toothpaste on their chins.
They roll out their blue or black plastic can, depending which week calls for which type of
offering.

The journey is dangerous. The cans are in threat of being frozen to the ground
or secretly coveting a wasps nest. But the cans must go.
The ice must be broken and the wasps set aflame with aerosol.
The journey is long. They have to roll the cans over driveways,
mountains, sidewalks, swooping valleys and to the darkened street.

The neighbors know that this part of their journey is done for now.
They leave the plastic cans because
it is all they can do now.
The cans wait,
knowing that they are delivering
a sacrificial offering–a whole tub full–to the god that will swoop from the neighborhoods
Above
pipes gushing, and gears squealing in delight
while previous sacrifices are born across its back.

The god will then fly away on its diesel wings to the land of human rubble and used up gifts,
maybe re-offering them to another god.
Mother earth? If so, she won’t accept the gifts.
Maybe she doesn’t see it as a sacrifice at all.
Instead, they molder and fester, the old helping to rot away the new,
but they sit unreceived.

The deposit of gifts is too great, but who else will take them?
Hermes sends his messenger doves to help dispose of the offerings
but they look more like seagulls.
They cry in the sky,
take their pick of offerings
and they can see with their glaring yellow eyes that the gifts are useless