Elliott Hundley, Incandescent Tangle VII, 2008. Gift of Candace and Michael Barasch. © Elliott Hundley
Seasonal Affective
by Diannely Antigua
Tendercrop Farm, 2014
It’s as simple as saying,
after a freeze there is always a thaw.
The once revered Christmas trees now
line the sidewalks, used up
from the glory of the living room—
bedazzled in lights and figures, sometimes
baubles or strings of popcorn. But now
at the edge of the street, their branches
droop over like a fainting woman’s arm.
Once, I went to a burning at a small New England farm.
There the people sipped hot chocolate
while waiting for sundown, when the local fire department
would set a hill of Christmas trees ablaze—
all the fainting ladies bright again, stars
born from the best trash. I remember after the burning
was more burning, his hands reached
to unbutton my sweater, then made a canopy of my arms
when he took off my undershirt
discarding it to the corner of the room.
I tell myself not all fires need to last long.
They can be quick peaks, pleasure
blown out, little flames on top of a cake. I’m learning
that candles are for more than birthdays,
also sex. Survival. And I remember
after that thaw was the worst freeze,
the puddles all black, the ash—
ambered in ice.
Published November 3, 2019
Diannely Antigua is a Dominican American poet and educator, born and raised in Massachusetts. Her debut collection Ugly Music (YesYes Books, 2019) was the winner of the Pamet River Prize. A graduate of the MFA program at NYU, she is the recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, Community of Writers, and the Fine Arts Work Center Summer Program. Her poems can be found in Washington Square Review, Bennington Review, The Adroit Journal, and elsewhere. Her heart is in Brooklyn.
Elliott Hundley’s dynamic sculptures, collages, and paintings employ cut photographs, natural objects, urban detritus, paint, stick pins, and countless other materials, giving them an ephemeral, ad hoc effect in a gallery space. Often Hundley’s work features dramatic narrative arcs found in classic epic poetry and plays, contrasting the fragility of the materials with a loose plot line that the viewer can follow. Hundley’s work has a large art historical pedigree, ranging from the early combine sculptures of Robert Rauschenberg to the provisional minimalism of Richard Tuttle to the elaborate narrative impulses of many contemporary artists.