On the Cusp of Air and Water by Vanessa Aricco
On the Cusp of Air and Water is Vanessa Aricco’s most recent collection of poetry written during her studio residency at the Charlotte Street Foundation. Aricco’s poems draw on the thematic material of capitalism and environmental collapse to illustrate some of the contradictions between labor and sustainability. Her title poem conveys to the reader (or listener) images of movement both tidal and tectonic. She writes, “we waded in relation / to environment not wages / our labor has reconfigured / a body in water in motion.” Her language grows rich with details of transfers and transmutations that gives space to the possibility of a future where different systems allow for a more conscientious relationship to our natural environment. Even though she writes with a sense of motion, there is no beginning or end to her poetic destinations. Like a “past merging with now,” Aricco’s poems have both a time and timelessness.
Performance:
Kick-Off Event, June 22, 5:30 p.m.
Kansas City Public Library – Central Library
Bio:
Vanessa Aricco is a multimedia poet exploring conflict and duality, the precarious nature of life, and the anxiety that arises from it. She is co-host of the Confessing Animals podcast, a series of conversations with writers and artists, and the creator of Tin Can Poetics, a free-form audio project. She’s released two poetry albums, The Midnight Rush and Human Animal, with her partner and collaborator Ashley Raines. She was a Charlotte Street Foundation 2019-22 Studio Resident in Kansas City, MO, where she completed her first full-length poetry manuscript, On the Cusp of Air and Water.
