Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2019: Artist’s Choice
Image: “Thai Bees” by Kim Tedrow. “Misinterpreting a Collage During Trump’s Presidency” was written by Jaime Mera for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, August 2019, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Comment from the artist, Kim Tedrow: “This poem surprised me, from the title to the last line. A political poem usually doesn’t work for me unless, like this one, it is grounded in personal experience. The poet braids the historical, political, personal, and entomological into a narrative about how our current crisis infiltrates and alters our perceptions and relationships. The turn, in which the speakers’ relationship with the brother-in-law goes from near estrangement to emotional intimacy, is perfectly executed with the poet’s return to the sawfly. I am also impressed with the research the poet did to identify the insect in the collage. I had no idea that it is a female elm sawfly. The collage itself is ekphrastic, inspired by a poem about the Thai bees that drink human tears. Without knowing what a Thai bee looks like, I just chose something from a clip art book that looked like a bee.”
