Of what myths are you made, what metamorphosis?

What roles do mythology, self-mythologization, and metamorphosis play in your life? What have the effects been? Where does the line between self-mythologization and self-deification lie? An interactive, immersive ritual communicated through verse, Bestiary is a meditation on these questions. A lyric in prism, a catharsis of identity, a homecoming.

Metaphor is the vehicle of both poetry and mythology. Their shared medium: storytelling. Their shared purpose: self-awareness -- transcendence from the dichotomies of time and ego to the oneness of our shared eternity. The ability to self-reflect is the fundamental difference between animals and humans. Poetry and mythology ignite in us self-reflection and self-awareness, ushering us from beast to human, launching in us a metamorphosis. From relentless time, to timelessness; from beast to being.

The poetry of Bestiary is that of metamorphosis: the crisis just prior, of mid-transformation, or the radiant wisdom that follows.

Which poetry card will you get; which journey will you choose?

Rae Boyadjis

Rae Boyadjis is a performance artist, aerialist, writer, immersive specialist, creative consultant, and Co-Director of Contemporary Circus/Ariel Dance collaborative Circus Solaris, based in Brooklyn, NYC. The main focus of their work hones on the creation or amplification of atmospheres and wholistic artistic visions. Whether engaging with a poetic audience, performing on a contemporary circus or theatrical stage, or helping turn the wheels of artistic groups and individuals — their goal in everything is to find the magic that exists in that specific endeavor, pull it down, and highlight it.

:::

Might

i don’t know if i’m the angler fish
or the little one swimming to the light.
if my teeth were a skyline that raucous and uneven,
i think i would be so hard to love.
but is it more important to have the light within you and be monstrous
or to want the light so badly
that you will break your tiny body to be near it?

Celestine, age 10

Celestine is a poet, singer, and pianist studying with Diorama’s founder.

:::

Wonder

Nature: she has grown lonely.
Follow fall, and all of her intuition
to where she rests on her bed of moss by the river.

Life has never loved light so much before.

Let us call the thing otherwise known as God, the Everlasting Mother of Earth.
Spring is part of our souls, the part that our souls crave,
And we welcome it, even if we do not know that we do.
   
Let it make you feel as though you were a child.

Lark, age 7

Lark is a young poet and pianist studying with Diorama’s founder.

:::

Bloom

Tonight we came to see the stars;
It covered us with its dark skies.

It did.

It showed us its rows of gleaming light,
Saturn’s circles making it laden with gold,
Jupiter with its moons making more life.

Tonight does not seem dark anymore.
Instead a place of wonder.

Emily Kendal Frey

Emily Kendal Frey is the author of Sorrow Arrow (Octopus Books, 2014). She teaches at The Independent Publishing Resource Center, Marylhurst University, Portland Community College, and Portland State University. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Brookes Moody

Brookes Moody holds a BA in English from Colby College and an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School. A Jersey girl with Rhode Island roots, her poems have appeared in magazines like Barnstorm, The Northern New England Review, and Silver Needle Press.  She is currently pursuing her PhD in English with a concentration in Creative Writing at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she teaches creative writing and literary journal production. A founding editor of the online poetry magazine The Mackinac, Brookes has also served as the Development Manager for Cream City Review and co-coordinated the Eat Local::Read Local poetry series.

Julia ClaRE Tillinghast

Julia Clare Tillinghast is a white anti-racist feminist gender-non-binary poet from from Michigan. She has published a chapbook of her own poems and co-translated a book of contemporary 20th century Turkish poetry by the experimental poet Edip Cansever.* She has had poems in Fence Magazine, [PANK], Sixth Finch, Tin House & Leveler, elsewhere. She has lived in Ann Arbor, New York, Istanbul, Virginia, and most recently in Portland, Oregon, with her partner Matthew and her two children. She also teaches yoga and ESL.

*[eh-DEEP JOHN-sev-air]