The Grid Project · Raleigh, NC, USA · November, 2024
This booklet showcases the visual art of the Floravita The artwork by Alia El-Bermani, Skillet Gilmore, Oami
exhibition paired with poetry written by three different Powers and Sally Van Gorder in this exhibition serves as
poets from the Paradigm Poetry collective. These three a memento mori, a reminder not just of our own mortality
poets are Kara Leinfelder, Brendan O’Connor, and Sam but of the fading chapters of those who came before us.
Pepple. The worn hands that once held ours so firmly are now
softening, slowing, becoming fragile echoes of their
Each poet picked a few different pieces that spoke to them former strength. And in them, we glimpse our own future
and wrote a poem about the piece. There was no dialogue selves—aging, weathered, and, eventually, gone.
between the visual artist and the poet and the poet was
not privy to any kind of artist statement. They simply This exhibition is not an elegy, but a celebration—a
wrote a piece, encoding in their poetry art form, the delicate reminder to savor the fleeting beauty of now.
feeling felt from viewing the visual art. To honor the transient, and to embrace the truth: that
life, with all its tender moments and inevitable losses, is
The idea of this exercise was to highlight how one breathtakingly, beautifully finite.
responds to visual art and how one responds to poetry.
There is no right way or no wrong way to respond to Pete Sack (Floravita Curator)
either art form. Each piece affects different people with
different lived experiences, differently. And it was the
hope to create a discussion about how we talk about art.
Sam Pepple (Poetry Director)
Below is the Floravita show introduction:
In the quiet moments, there’s a peculiar weight that
settles over us—a haunting awareness of time’s quiet
persistence. Floravita invites us to reflect on the delicate
balance between living and letting go, where the fading
of one life is not an ending, but part of a continuous,
intertwined rhythm—an eternal dance of flesh, bone, and
blossom.
This collection explores the fragile space where time feels
both infinite and fleeting, like staring at an hourglass
while pretending it’s not running. It’s a dance between
remembering and forgetting—a tug-of-war between love
and loss, between clinging to the familiar and confronting
the unknown.
speak, bird, speak
tell us the story of
when your mother
pushed you delicately
from the beech tree, how you
hopped around unsure
of your own feet, your tiny
mouth mutely squawking
as it tried to find its
falcon-warning call, tell us
the tale of when first
you flew, darting across
pool-blue skies with your
friends, your sisters,
your brothers, your mate
speak of the view of this
tattered world from that
whole space set so
safely in puffed clouds
speak, bird, speak and
tell us how to evade
being consumed, how to
save ourselves hastily as
we have fallen from our nest
harshly into predator proxy
speak, bird, speak
and tell us it is not too late
-Kara V. Leinfelder
Alia El-Bermani
Speak bird, speak again
1 2
Hold that thistly head
Made by hand, made from soil
Beaten copper, and earthen gold
A community of teasels
Asking if we’re so separate—
What we make, from what we are?
Isn’t there in all of it, something dying
And something green?
If it holds through winter
Perhaps life might grow again
But that lining ain’t promised
So hold that thistly head
But not too tight
And if you bleed
May it be for life, not death
-B. H. O’Connor
Alia El-Bermani
Bouquet of Teasel
3 4
The protector selected
A strange melange / making the brain twitch / just a bit
/ as flower’s sepal, / deer’s antler, / and turtle’s shell / all
seem to compete / for a pattern recognized
this assemblage / not of objects found / but of objects
crafted. / crafted from old earth, / taking millions of years
/ for silicate minerals / to weather free from rock / and
eventually become / a substance that can / be worked
by hand / and then cooked hard / into ceramic forms /
rendered and assembled
that sepal, antler, and shell / all protective parts of / their
particular organisms / keeping the flower, deer, / and
turtle safe
A combined and / organized display / a wreath of sorts /
consistent to say / I am here, / you are secure. / no need to
be afeared
a beautiful / hard hat / worn by / the soft centered /
empaths who go / out into the world / with hearts open
looking / for connection / and often finding bruises.
this helmet / shields one to / battle with / the indignities /
of the day / and to fully / share their grace / for and with /
those that need to feel / something real / with some kind /
of symbiosis of soul.
Oami Powers it is only / from a place / of protection / can souls / start to
Offering #1
fill, / and to piece together / a peace even possible
-SAM
5 6
Untitled
you can smell it
when you open the
front door, the creak
of the oak doesn’t
distract from the odor
as it hits you directly
in the face, it’s death
the soured past life of
withered roses and
what was once so
sweet now hangs in the
air like a swampy forgotten
low country street slung
with Spanish moss and
ghosts, the greenery
swollen and limp from
the embalming of the
vase water, last signs
of life clinging to green
glass like a coke bottle
from the 1950s, the haint
that lingers in this aroma
was undeterred from the
pale blue ceiling the
Gullah Geechee said
would keep it away
it reminds
you that you will die
Oami Powers a hundred times more before you
Three Tulips
are truly gone and new
flowers are blooming
thusly
-Kara V. Leinfelder
7 8
Galveston
the wind carries the sound
of seagulls, if you listen
close enough, the thrill
of people playing in the
sun charges the air,
coiffed ladies in bathing
uniforms pull on cigarettes
as they lounge gracefully
on beach chairs, ever so
slightly hidden by twirling
umbrellas save the scandal
of their barely bared legs draped
with ankles crossed just so
that their feet point like
classically trained ballerinas,
close your eyes and soak it in,
imagine the sand is smushing
between your toes as the pulling
water melts it from under your feet
close your eyes and pretend…
is what I imagine my grandmother’s
eldest brother told her as they sat,
all five of them, at the sill of the
orphanage window overlooking
Galveston
I don’t think the salt air
Skillet Gilmore ever left her hair and
Galveston, 1959
the longing never
left her stare
-Kara V. Leinfelder
9 10
The practices we have
Where do we keep these
Hazy, layered pasts?
What claim of responsibility
Do they have on us, on me?
To tell their stories—
Of a life twice married, and no longer
Separated now by law and time
By an absence of choice
If I cycle back am I driving in circles
Or seeing as some Sankofa bird?
And if you listen
My heart may catch looking at the past
And I may look away from
What we don’t have time for
Perhaps we would with slideshows of old
But our pictures so many now
We don’t even know what it is to show them—
To ourself, to the friend beside us
But bring ye the virtual friend beyond
And we may lay red carpets of old photos
And so we are left to wonder
If the practices we have create the isolation
Or if it’s the people we are
Perhaps the coin flipping from one day to the next
Skillet Gilmore But if we see far enough
Just
We may see our stories as offerings
To burn hot so their smell and
Warmth might draw a huddled mass of
People looking for themselves and you—
A practice, you might say
-B. H. O’Connor
11 12
Lights on fire
Cheap and chintzy
But man it gave us light
Now them lights are out
And a stale past remains
Of hopeful letters that read like
Someone else’s hope
Maybe I’ll burn these for fuel
And light for the present
Because the days have changed
And because I need the light
And maybe one day
I’ll get a new lamp
And maybe that day
It’ll cast enough light
That I can see the old days, anew
-B. H. O’Connor
Sally Van Gorder
storage, Correspondence
13 14
To the mailbox
The sum of him / was eventually summed up / with an
overflowing shoebox / flowed over with stacks / of mail,
bundled up / with aged string / surrounding aged paper
/ disintegrating from envelope / to letter, to envelope
sandwiches.
Each day he would walk / to the mailbox / to look for
something good, / something to brighten the day. / He hoped
for a letter / from a previous lover, / he hoped for a refund
check / from the IRS, / he hoped for an acceptance letter /
from a literary journal /
finding something good / was a rare treat
His rule was to / never open any / bad-news mail / if it didn’t
have the chance to delight, / it was left for dead. / bills, /
advertisements, / scammy things, / all left for dead / and
promptly trashed
But with the ones / the letters from / the literary journals,
/ he of course could not / accurately detect /acceptance or
rejection, / and the thought of rejection/ stirred crashing
acidic waves in his stomach / so he decided not to open any
/ but to keep’em all / this way he never knew / and assumed
some other time / he would get around / to opening those
That time never came / and he never knew / what was inside /
those bundles of mail
-SAM
Sally Van Gorder
storage, Blue Box
15 16
