What Is It, Then, Between Us?: Poetry & Democracy

Poet and visual artist Rachel Eliza Griffiths will give a reading in response to her new photography exhibition, bruise bullet flower, currently on display in the gallery.

bruise bullet flower documents the strength, vulnerability, and beauty of black and brown queer bodies existing under the daily threat of gun violence in the United States. The exhibition at Woodland Pattern is the national debut for Griffiths’ project.

A chapbook published by Woodland Pattern in celebration of bruise bullet flower will be available to event attendees free of cost. The chapbook features photographs from the exhibition and poetry from eleven authors of color: Reginald Dwayne Betts, Jericho Brown, Natalie Diaz, Ross Gay, Aracelis Girmay, Rickey Laurentiis, Kamilah Aisha Moon, Safiya Sinclair, Tracy K. Smith, R.A. Villanueva, and Philip B. Williams.

Griffiths’ exhibition and reading is part of a series of March programs organized by the Poetry Coalition, a national alliance of more than twenty-five organizations, of which Woodland Pattern is a founding member. Every March, the Coalition chooses a theme of social importance to discuss within its communities. This year’s programming focus is “What Is It, Then, Between Us?: Poetry and Democracy.”

The question “What is it, then, between us?” is an excerpt from the poem “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” by Walt Whitman. Whitman is canonically recognized as a poet whose work forged a new kind of American poetry that both expresses democratic ideals and contains painful truths about our country’s origin. This year also marks the 200th anniversary of Whitman’s birth.