Image by Oscar Ukonu
Dear writers, readers and friends,
Kristen here, publisher, curator and co-founder of our beloved Visual Verse. This final issue for the year 2020 comes with a personal message from me.
This year, I have made some simple but significant changes to how I curate Visual Verse, including a commitment to featuring more contemporary artists. Prior to 2020, I was complacent in my approach to curation, sourcing images primarily from public domain collections, photo libraries and museum archives. Not only did this limit the diversity of artists represented, but it also meant we missed opportunities to be a true reflection on the world around us. The zeitgeisty atmosphere that you all bring with your writing is what makes Visual Verse a truly unique publication. The images need to match you.
My search for current, contemporary work is how I came to discover Oscar Ukonu (https://www.oscarukonu.com/) , the Nigerian artist behind our visual prompt for December. Oscar creates exquisite afrorealist portraits using only a ballpoint pen. He says “exploring afrorealism in my works is a practice of representing, documenting and celebrating the diversified forms of black individuality. With my work, I look at the role of socio-historical influences on contemporary identities, believing identities as socially constructed and constantly changing.” For me, this is a perfect semblance of my own preoccupation with historical images and Oscar’s embodiment of his own history through deeply mindful artworks. I have chosen to feature him now, on the tail end of the protests in Nigeria (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/13/world/africa/Nigeria-EndSARS-protests.html) against police brutality, to draw attention to the talent and tenacity of artists like Oscar, who continue to work despite the
challenges they face.
Oscar describes his creative process as a practice in time and patience, working approximately 200 to 400 hours on a piece. He says: “I aim to provoke thought and engage my audiences intellectually… through visual dialogues that establish a relationship with the viewer, and encourage their participation to the same extent as my involvement in it.”
Oscar spent 200+ hours on this piece and he encourages you to participate to the same extent. You have one hour. What will you do with this time? What do you see in this image? What do you feel? Where will it take you? What will you remember? How will it inspire you? Be brave, obscure, abstract. The selection of this image is, of course, an act of quiet activism in the spirit of Visual Verse, but it is also simply a beautiful, powerful work. Enjoy it as you wish and bring forth your own words.
To inspire you we have three exceptional writers who give us three completely different and wonderful responses to this image. On page one we welcome the brilliant Jasmine Richards (https://jasminerichards.com/) , who has written over a dozen books for children and teenagers, including Keeper of Myths published by Harper Collins US. Jasmine is the founder of Storymix (https://www.storymix.co.uk/) , a fiction development company that creates inclusive series fiction for publishers. All children, regardless of background, get to be the heroes in these stories. Storymix is actively seeking writers from BME backgrounds to work with and Jasmine uses her unique experiences as author, editor and writing coach to develop new voices and new stories. She really does try not to read the review of her books…
On page two we are thrilled to bring you Jennifer Celestin, a Haitian-American writer, performer, and facilitator. Her writings have been included in Akashicbooks.com (http://www.akashicbooks.com/real-love-by-jennifer-celestin/) , No, Dear Magazine, The Hawai’i Review, la Revue Trois/Sant/Soixante, aaduna (https://aaduna.org/summer2019/poetry/jennifer-celestin/) , and Midnight & Indigo (https://www.midnightandindigo.com/author/jennifer-celestin/) . She received a B.A. from Wesleyan University, an M.A. from NYU, and her M.F.A. in Fiction at CUNY: Queens College. Check her out this Friday, December 4th from 4pm-6pm for a virtual event with other Afro-Latinx artists. (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/mind-body-soul-afrofuturist-sacred-sounds-tickets-130421749965)
And on page three we feature one of our regular contributors, Jaya Avendel, a word witch from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, writing family into fantasy through poetry and prose. Her writing has been published here at Visual Verse and by Free Verse Revolution, and Spillwords Press, among others. She is also published in As The World Burns Anthology from Indie Blu(e) Publishing. Her poetry is also forthcoming at Mookychick. She writes at ninchronicles.com (https://ninchronicles.com/) and tweets as @AvendelJaya (https://twitter.com/AvendelJaya) .
So, dear writers, what will you make of this image? As always, you have until the 15th to write 50-500 words, in one hour. The image is the starting point, the text is up to you.
With love and thanks for another incredible year of writing. You are a remarkable community of creatives.
Kristen
With Preti, Lucie and Luke
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