This month is the one year anniversary of posting my poem “Condolences” to TikTok and Instagram, where it amassed millions of likes and tens of thousands of comments.
Since, people have used the poem for adaptive art pieces, short plays, books, and class work. For your piece of art to be transformed into another…it’s difficult to describe.
After several rejections from poetry publications a decade ago, I decided to post my work online instead. The responses were overwhelming. I realized that an official publication doesn’t make you a poet. Writing poetry does, and bonus points if you manage to resonate with just one other soul who needed to hear what you needed to say.
I was utterly taken aback by the response to this piece. People have asked me many times to explain it, but from the response it was clear that the meaning can be explicated with a little time.
Some people who didn’t understand it until it was explained were angry when it came together. It wasn’t written for them.
I’m only grateful that it reached the people who needed it.
I feel that the imagery is part of the piece, but I know not everyone can or cares to listen to a video. Here is the poem:
———————
They buried a girl in my hometown today.
“A young woman, gone too soon, in the prime of her life,” they all said.
My friends and I all knew her. We grew up together.
We were in all the same classes and hobbies and we made up games together at recess.
But none of us went to her funeral. We weren’t invited, because the people planning it didn’t think we’d understand. They said it wasn’t our loss.
So we got together for drinks. We laughed all morning and played card games all day.
At 4 o’clock, we heard the church bells. We saw that long, sad procession of cars stretch like a creek through town, up the cemetery hill.
We heard strange rumors that night, that the casket was empty. That they put it hollow in the ground.
So we went to the plot first thing in the morning. They buried her empty box next to her dad, down the row from an estranged aunt she never really knew all that well.
There wouldn’t be a stone for months, but the little placard had my name on it. But not the one I go by these days.
“How strange,” we all said. “What a waste of good crying.”
All of this mourning for me, and I was down the street the whole time, laughing and drinking.
But some people will never understand. They’d rather plan a funeral than learn a new name.
My friend said she felt sorry for them, in some small way.
15.) rank the methods of death: freezing, burning, drowning
Burning is definitely #1. I love being toasty. I’ve also given myself a third degree burn before and honestly once the nerves die it doesn’t feel like anything, so the suffering is pretty minimal.
Drowning is #3. I can think of at least two times when I’ve nearly drowned and I would absolutely not recommend the experience; it feels like shit.
So that puts freezing at #2. I dislike being cold but at least freezing is a proper kind of sharp pain you can be masochistic about, instead of the visceral bloating and existential dread that drowning is.
26.) how’s your spice tolerance?
Great! I developed an interest in spicy food after working in a Texan chef’s kitchen (serving mostly a crowd of Texans). I like most foods with a little kick as a general rule, but I do also go for full spice sometimes. When I get food from my favorite Japanese and Indian places, there’s about a 50% chance that I’m going for spicy squid or lamb vindaloo respectively, both of which are horrific mouth and stomach torture, and yet.
“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is a 1991 piece by Felix Gonzalez-Torres in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago. It’s a spilled pile of candy.
The pile of candy consists of commercially available, shiny wrapped confections. The physical form of the work changes depending on the way it is installed. The work ideally weighs 175 pounds (161 kg) at installation, which is the average body weight of an adult male.
“Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) represents a specific body, that of Ross Laycock, Gonzalez-Torres’ partner who died of AIDS in 1991. This piece of art serves as an “allegorical portrait,” of Laycock’s life.
Visitors are invited to take a piece of candy from the work. Gonzalez-Torres grew up Roman Catholic and taking candy is a symbolic act of communion, but instead of taking a piece of Christ, the participant partakes of the “sweetness” of Ross. As the patrons take candy, they are participants in the art. Each piece of candy consumed is like the illness that ate away at Ross’s body.
Multiple art museums around the world have installed this piece.
Per Gonzalez-Torres’ parameters, it is up to the museum how often the pile is restocked, or whether it is restocked at all. Whether, instead, it is permitted to deplete to nothing. If the pile is replenished, it is metaphorically granting perpetual life to Ross.
In 1991, public funding of the arts and public funding for AIDS research were both hot issues. HIV-positive male artists were being targeted for censorship. Part of the logic of “Untitled” (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) is you can’t censor free candy without looking ridiculous, and the ease of replicability of the piece in other museums makes it virtually indestructible.
Mel Baggs, a visionary autistic writer and advocate, has died. Mel was a pillar of the autistic community; ASAN, and neurodiversity as we know it today, would not exist without hir. We are heartbroken. Our thoughts are with Mel’s loved ones.
Over the last few years, Mel documented hir struggles with a service system that would not meet hir independent living needs. ASAN was working with Mel on this issue. It is a massive systems failure that Mel’s needs went unmet in hir last years. Sie deserved so much better.
We don’t know yet what caused Mel’s death. We do know that hir legacy will live on. Mel shaped the way our movement advocates for the rights of autistic and developmentally disabled people, and hir work will continue to do good in the world for decades to come. You can read Mel’s groundbreaking writing here and here.
Thank you, Mel. You will be so, so missed. Rest In Power.
Death Certificates – What you need, why you need them, and
how to get them
Prepare to spend a long and miserable time on the phone
What the Everloving Fuck is Probate
Some Simple Dos and Don’ts
Shitty Mad Libs – Templates for writing Obituaries and
Memorials
How to plan a non-religious death party
So you suddenly have to become some sort of hacker or some
shit
This is an eighteen page book that you can print out, download, share, and give away; it is meant to be used to collect information about funeral planning and account management after a death OR you can use it BEFORE you die and give people information so they’re not stuck playing Nancy Fucking Drew while trying to keep seventeen cousins who crawled out of the woodwork from gutting each other in front of the fucking casket as they argue about who’s inheriting grandma’s favorite dentures.
It’s not exactly cheerful and it’s full of things that are probably going to feel really fucking raw if you’re processing a fresh death.
I’m sorry! I love you! Death is shitty! I’m trying to laugh about it a little and I hope you can laugh a little too because otherwise we’re all just going to cry together.
Good luck!
(in memory of my weirdo mother and her weirdo siblings who all died too fucking young and left me holding this flaming bag of dogshit)
This is so radically kind, thank you
You’re welcome!
Life is short, kindness is what we’ve got.
When my mom died it wasn’t exactly unexpected but it was still sooner than we all thought it would happen. It was a huge punch in the guts and the thought of making things and not being able to show her and share them with her still hurts but in that first month it was like drowning.
So I made this for her, and shared it with and showed it to other people who are hurting, because my momma didn’t raise a quitter but she sure did raise a softhearted fool who wants everyone to feel a little more loved and a little more worthy and a little less alone.
[ image description: A 4-panel colored comic about a white person with short brown hair and a black cat.
Panel 1: The cat looks proud and is holding a struggling moth in its mouth. The owner, concerned but smiling, says “oww, good kitten.”
Panel 2: The cat looks even more proud while holding a struggling rat in its mouth by the tail. The owner is impressed and smiling and says “wow! Good kitten!”
Panel 3: The cat looks incredibly proud. It is holding in its mouth a battered, scratched-up human arm, which continues offscreen. The owner looks shocked and distressed and the color is draining from their face.
Panel 4: Outside at night, the owner is using a shovel to pat down a mound of dirt by the light of a big flashlight which is positioned in the grass. They are glaring at the cat, saying “bad kitten!” while the cat licks its paw, either watching the scene or not paying attention.
Genuine curiosity: if a celebrity dies on vacation away from their home region and the precise date they died is different where they were and what time it was in their home, which date does the wikipedia article use?
okay regardless of your opinion on voting, please stop saying how the elderly shouldn’t be allowed vote because “it won’t impact them” like they’re still a very exploited class of people and a 70 year old can live longer than my entire life, like it does impact them, it can lead to an unnatural death on their part it can lead to worsening life conditions it can lead to so many terrible things for them they do matter and they are harmed adversely by poor decisions made by our governments.
People over 65 rely on Medicaid to cover their ridiculously expensive Medicare Part B premium. They rely on food stamps. They really on long term care benefits through Medicaid.
Rich people are the problem. Not old people.
also: even if old people weren’t subject to ableism/elder abuse, not all people who are old now were ever in the positions of power we’re talking about.
there are old people who were young when they were denied the right to vote, equal housing, etc. should they be placed in the same category with the old people who denied them those rights in the first place, who got rich and powerful off of their exploitation? how does that make sense
