Surviving the Blaze

When Mike and I started talking about a new commission for Macalester, it was around the time that a piece I wrote for Vox Femina – Our Streets, A Symphony Again – was receiving its premiere. That piece was about the city of West Hollywood “reopening” after COVID isolation and quarantine. I thought it would be a great idea to look deeper into “reopening” stories from different cities. My friend Brian Sonia-Wallace (@rentpoet), who wrote the text for Our Streets then introduced me to Minneapolis based poet Annette Schiebout.

Surviving the Blaze is about rediscovery amidst and after a time of isolation and plague – past relationships, a city one calls home, the magic of nature, the heightened need for systemic change after the murder of innocent lives… Surviving a pandemic and a major social uprising posed the questions: What are the essentials? What do we want and what else needs to be “rediscovered”?