II. river-bend
I want to know and control
more than I want to admit.
My canoe paddle drags against the current.
I squint
into the strong wind, the sun,
into every gaze that dares return my own.
Black hole pupils filter
what isn’t meant for me
while love dilates truth to see.
No screeching halt
only riverbend:
canoe in clearwater flow
sun behind me, facing east
a steady oar toward morning
when the trepidatious gaze of dawn
blinks the sleepy horizon alight
to stare me down again.
Fourteen poem chapbook
By Lily Selthofner and Jessa (Faye) Moverman
View full album on YouTube
Watch Series in order on this site
Afterlives is a series that brings together interviews, music, poetry, dance, and film. Each track touches on one of life’s most unanswerable, yet compelling, questions: What happens after death? Afterlives is in collaboration with over 40 talented artists and interviewees.
View the full credits list here
Afterlives emotionally and tenderly parses through contemporary thoughts on what happens to us after we die. I asked strangers in NYC, California, and Wisconsin, as well as family and friends, what they think happens upon our passing. Watched in order, the series is interspersed with poetry and narrations that arc through life’s journey of contemplation — from loss to spiritual experiences and everything in between. Afterlives brings comfort and reckoning to life is a preparation for death.
The main ethnographic data is sonic. The ears are the last sense to go when we die; they constantly inform our reality, never blinking. Pythagoras lectured from behind a curtain to take advantage of the ear’s power to listen. Capturing the intimate details of each voice informs the process-oriented methods at the root of this work. I curated interview audios with music, visually accompanied by film of nature and dance. Editing with circularity, repetition, and building of themes adds emotional depth to the spoken sentiments.
The diverse array of tracks flow between instrumental, discursive, poetic, and emotional. Each track splices together locations, moods, and choreographies that light up the viewer’s own imaginative realms of meditative peace and future dreams, in between one’s physical and spiritual bodies. Oceans and bluffs merge with snowy winters and soft sunsets.
In the editing process, it became clear to me that each person’s response deserved its full time. I honor the full message and vulnerability of each voice by leaving their response un-fragmented, highlighting each the epistemic merit of each person’s perspective. I curated the series in an order that coalesces their individual messages into an emotional and discursive arc, rather than obscuring the nature of their thoughts toward an imposed external creative vision.
The end result is a 90 minute album with 40 tracks, where the soul-touching sentiments of everyday people on the question of mortality are laid in flowerbeds of music, nature, and dance, that resounds strongly with the truths we hold dear, and unknowns we foray into, as living beings who walk this Earth step in step together until every last one of us meets our mortal fate.
Eight poems by Lily Selthofner – Italian with English Translations – featured in Venezia Scalzo Screendance
Visual arts selections:
Poetry Selections:
Essay:
This selection of visual art and poetry pieces articulates themes which occur throughout life — namely the paradoxes/portals lying amongst the dimensions of ‘here and now,’ and in the border between mundane and universal imaginative spaces. My artwork is often inspired by the various planes of existence that we dream through in our day-to-day lives. We indulge in potentialities, weaving in and out of various lucidities to co-construct reality with one another. For example, my pieces “9th Dimension” and “10th Dimension” are explorative documentations of a recurring dream I had in 2020. Dreamscape demands a contemplation of interconnectedness — the space between ourselves and every other thing is fundamentally similar, existing within and beyond awareness.
Similarly, my piece “Our House” is a form and structure emerging from a loose watercolor wash wherein I attempt to literally draw out the feelings of home — an animate idea shared in our collective memories. Here, the loose colors of ‘house’ is the space which births the lines of ‘home,’ complementary yet self-transcendent. “Latent” more specifically explores the choreography of art-making. The piece’s name, and form, are reminiscent of the late-night energies it was created with. The process of creating this piece was a meditative dance, concretized in paint, bringing the ephemeral into the physical, acting as a portal in a way.
In “Breath,” I am reflecting on the collective pandemic trauma’s physicalization in space. The piece was inspired by the textures and forms of various cloth masks that I have — the two vertical lines represent both elastic ear-pieces on masks, and two socially distanced people — both of which are physically separated but vitally united in effort. A mouth-like liminality emerges as these two lines define and transcend boundaries between the internal and external, from the cellular to the societal.
As for the poems, “Fawning From Vitality,” is an exploration of temporalities. Reflecting on the smallness of the present in the grandiosity of existence, it is an attempt to cope with the fatigue of searching for meaning across temporal leaps and bounds. Likewise, “Refraction” is an exploration of spatiality. I wrote this poem on the subway, as my environment refracted into multiplicities of spatial existences of myself, and my fellow-train car passengers. Where the subway train becomes the ancient earthworm, I sifted through the desires and delusions that fill the gaps between ‘here’ and ‘there’ on these mundane paths — offering portals into imaginative infinities.
A poem by Lily Selthofner.
the sun grew in two sizes
and the flowers became mountains.
teetering above
little ants orbiting summer skin
mistakes float on falling leaves
aching knees
marching westward
towards redemption
sorting open skies
with thunder breaths
and forgiving dances
antsy steps into vastness.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, 2021.
release into the smoke
ashy fiery flames
burn the same as ancient wood.
a rising phoenix
or a slow decompose
earthy wormey dirt
breaks down my baby bones.
an immortal transition
away from life’s debt
face melting, skin burning
maggots fill the lily.
inhale, exhale, stop.
which to choose:
to fly or to rot.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, 2021.
time, insurmountable and irrelevant
children, innocent and…We are love
able, craving simple warmth in tumultuous weather…
sharp edges drawing silent blood.
a future with… a present without
I pour from a cup filled with riveting ocean waves
sending sprinkles from afar
with uncertainty, may we dive.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, 2021.
the same force that rolls waves upon the shore
sweetens breeze and echoes arial song
the backbone
brushes a woman’s dress as she walks
and screeches to her silent serenade
early ocean foam carries scavengers
little trinkets:
wind-washed seashells
casting little shadows in the late morning sun.
the waves ricochet
in fortune days
hiding empty messages from above
A poem by Lily Selthofner, 2022.
cyclical, seasonal
what burden to bear?
the weight may sparsely disappear
ease
spots trouble in the distance
the telescope of uncertainty
smeared with the fog of conditioning
sticky fingers wiping away
attachment to the good, bad, looming and lingering
in favor of a lighter next time.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, 2021.
a looming threat manifests
in each gray moment unspent
simply sedated, devoid of sacred
anxiously awaited in bed.
sometimes,
I miss when things were fun and easy.
sometimes,
things are fun and easy.
the breeze ties your hair back
so you see, clearly
the universe is giving.
‘wasting away’
is gathering the strength
to sink into ease again.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, 2021.
people all around me
are they hurting, are they healing?
are they writing, are they reading?
are they feeling, seeing
the world through which they hurry?
an imperfectly manicured journey, scrolling vulnerability
as complex opacity confuses passerby
eyes blinded by neon lights
while hands
grasp towards what is transparent.
Do you belong here:
in the city, on the street?
or with ancient earthworms digging under your feet?
may we see each other in timeless hues, idle mysteries uncovered.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, 2021.
wheels push the days into months
learned figures of god to follow
reality left unswallowed
loving hugs to marvel
with memories of source preceding,
beauty lingering
may each young vessel of potentiality
emerge unscathed, wrapped in the knowledge of birdsong
into each coming day and month
a baby, growing old
growing up.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, January 13, 2022.
scavenging
little moments of daydream escape.
from school bus to subway train
I travel
to and from the same location.
roads paved, from rural hometowns
to massive Manhattan highways
everyone waits
for the light to change.
We are all the same.
Fill my backpack with your labored desires,
so you may rest. sweet relief
remains submissive
to the beck and call of heavy traffic.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, November 7, 2021.
hunger left unsatiated
by an empty break.
berate the day–
arrive late
to every calling.
a fragile child
gripping heavy wrists
tackles an impossible option–
feel or function?
stagger through the thick mud of self-hatred
reach for the door–
before the enemy consumes.
bland years stink of decay
the soldier remains
shackled to the frail bed frame.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, 2021.
decibels sway,
ache and echo.
overwhelming,
sentimental.
rolling wheels screech.
ebb and flow
effervescent urban glow
alarms the tired benches of gray halls,
weeping into blankets
of cold, timeless boredom.
A poem by Lily Selthofner, Oct. 2021.
don’t part
from dreams. open eyes
release
anxiety
one foot forward
the other lingers
behind
until the next swing.
a dip plunging in
seek refuge in its entirety
A poem by Lily Selthofner, November 2, 2021, Manhattan, NY.
‘Uphill battles should never be climbed –
alone.
find a perch, enjoy the view
nostalgic perceptions
wander towards the present
where I may seek to take an easy step with you.’
