selected writing
the day before
the day before the election, I wrote an article for The Gallup Independent about an event at the pueblo of Zuni and heard a beautiful story about prayers over water, a prayer that had stopped a mining project that would have drained Zuni Salt Lake and disturbed sacred spaces.
the day after, I wrote this poem
LISTEN BELOW
Read the ARTICLE and the POEM here
Of Stones and Dance
an article in Stance on Dance
At first, the girl had no feel for the dance. Everything was stone. But later, there were small moments – I remember them as blips – when the steps matched sound and she fell into a rhythm. Then everything went dark. For decades, there was silence, stasis.…And now the girl is awakening in me. Or I am awakening in the memory of her?
an article in Stance on Dance
So much of my story of studying flamenco in Spain has been about encounters with other dancers and the stories we are telling ourselves and figuring out about why we dance: what it means, what is body? what is movement? what is feeling? what is progress? what is success? why am I here? what does flamenco mean to me? who am I when I dance? what is left of the dance after I dance? what is left of me?
poems
selections on soundcloud
Photo by Shebana Coelho
Bumbuulei, Jagaa and Bayra, moving day in Hentii, Spring 2007
“
in telling stories, I feel I’m continuing a
process in which our
connections expand,
the world contracts,
and far away
becomes close.”
— from SNOW IN MONGOLIA by Shebana Coelho
first published in Vela magazine
Selected to the Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 10 & Translated into Swedish for the anthology, Gränslös (Without Borders)
“afterwards, it was english”
After Names first appeared in Salamander magazine
Last month in Palestine, I met a 10-year-old child named Handala. He was barefoot, with his back to everyone. I saw him everywhere — drawn, painted, and sketched — in the West Bank, a symbol of a childhood frozen by war and occupation. READ more
Listen first appeared in Sukoon magazine
Steppe Song first appeared in Malpais Review
Variations on longing first appeared in Yes, Poetry; graphic design by Gabrielle Seredowych
Still Dust first appeared in the Rag, design by Gabrielle Seredowych
Of Water appeared in the New Mexico Mercury and Autumn Sky Poetry, graphic design by Gabrielle Seredowych
Lying in bed one night, Sebastian Martin looks up and swears something just moved. ‘Did you see that?’ he whispers, nudging his wife. Sushila is drowsy in the curve of his arm but opens her eyes and reminds him that he was born with a caul over his face, a thin, clear membrane that the doctors brushed aside so he could wail his way into the world.
Meanwhile, Salim was speaking about doubt. He paced up and down the tracks, his thin frame casting shadows on the cement floor of the platform.
“Doubt ought to be celebrated like faith is,’ he was saying.
The four of them were at the train station, waiting for the ten a.m. to Ranpur and wondering if it would come at all. You could never be certain – downed trees or bandits often delayed it.
WRITING
Poems and prose pieces have been published in Calyx, Mizna, The Normal School, Slice Magazine, Permafrost Magazine, Salamander, Chronogram magazine, Word Riot, Sukoon, Lummox, Juked, Tinderbox Review, Santa Fe Review, Malpais Review, Entropy, the Madcap Review, the Nottingham Review, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Wildness, Yes Poetry, New Mexico Mercury, NPR's On Being blog, the anthology, Beyond Forgetting: Poetry and Prose about Alzheimer's Disease (Kent University Press, foreword Tess Gallagher), Sin Fronteras journal and The Rag.
Other grants include a fiction award from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, and an Archie D. & Bertha Walker Scholarship from the Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown, MA. Artists’ residency awards at Hedgebrook Colony, Jentel, Hall Center for the Arts, the New York Mills Cultural Center and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation of New Mexico..
Feature articles for Al Jazeera America, Howl Round, Theatre Communications Group's Blog, Vela, Time Out Mumbai and The O&P Edge.
An essay, Snow in Mongolia, published online in Vela magazine. and also appears in the Best Women's Travel Writing, Volume 10 ( editor, Lavinia Spalding). Translated into Swedish for the anthology, Gränslös (Without Borders)
