Poems inspired by Megan Wilson’s Home 1996-2008 installation

**Megan Wilson, *Home 1996 - 2008*, Bedroom & Bathroom, 2008**

As part of her class at The Writers Grotto, poet Maw Shein Win shared images of artists’ work to inspire her students to write poems in response. Maw shared images of my project Home 1996 - 2008, a site-specific installation/environment that utilized the interior space of my home to explore and challenge notions of comfort and protection, private and public, and the boundaries between art/life/architecture/ design. The title is a bit of misnomer; I began working on the project in 2004 (the dates reflect the years that I lived at the residence).

These are links to the project:

Home 1996-2008: Living Room & Office
Home 1996 - 2008: Hallway & Kitchen
Home 1996 - 2008: Bedroom & Bathrooms
Home 1996-2008: Dinner Salons
Home 1996-2008: Curated Events
Home 1996-2008: Projections
Home 1996-2008: De-Install

And the essay I wrote about the project:

Home 1996-2008-essay, Art Practical, Issue 1.2 Nomads and Residents

**The following are six poems written using Home 1996-2008 for inspiration. Thank you Tri, Paul, Stephanie, Cheryl, Dawn, and Rae for thoughtfully honoring my work!**

**Megan Wilson, *Home 1996 - 2008*, Kitchen, 2008**

Consensus

First we heard about what was there
and then we saw it for ourselves--

Muted textures in radiant patterns everywhere,
Against a chartreuse canvas that held velvet

Concentric arrays of irregular discs aloft in the air,
Petals or pine cone spurs splayed cardinal, right and left.

Echoes of the Summer of Love or a renaissance fair?
A recollection of grade school crafts, immersed, without stress.

All things rolled one way; we reached this place where
The creative universe of the wallpaper's stretched.

And soon came to such a place to stare
A few more times on how the world's bereft.

by Tri Do

**Megan Wilson, *Home 1996 - 2008*, Hallway, 2008**

Her Hall of Flowers

after Megan

Some time after midnight, she had to pee.
It was cold out of the covers, cold and dark
Except for the spillover street light coming through the transom,
Faint but palpable in the velvet dark.

The walk through the hall seemed long,
Longer than in daylight.
Flowers grabbed at her in the shadows,
Voracious blossoms intent on draining every drop of life
From her flesh. Leaves fell from the ceiling,
Tangled themselves in her hair, her skin, her fingernails,
Into her footsteps, trapping her inside a vegetative excess.

Someone had left the light on in the bathroom.
Its faint glow flowed through the door crack, beckoning.
Only this saved her from the flowery night, only this
Freed her from those secret worlds beneath, around her
In that secret dark, worlds that drew her down into dark memory
Of lives not lived, opportunity misled, timeless wonders.
Only this faint glow drew her back into nightmares of what had happened
Other nights, lost loves, lost dreams, hope crushed
Beneath the press of flowers, betrayed
In lush caverns of night.

No finer moment all her life, than to be at last
In the bright bathroom, sitting, relaxed, as the warm
Stream drained her body, drained the fear, the frenzy, the excess
Of hydraulic reserve.

To be now at peace, drained, warm. This time, she flicks
On the light switch, makes her way back, unmolested
To her bed, reminding herself, This is no purgatory. It is only
A dead hall of dead flowers.

by Paul Quin

**Megan Wilson, *Home 1996 - 2008*, Living Room, 2008**

Your Own Imagination

Walk little girl
through this world
Sing little girl
into your dreams
What you hear inside
that beautiful mind is fantastical

Go - Leap! into the
fantasy land
crafted simply from
your own imagination

Walk further into
the landscape of
floating colors and geometric shapes
cascading one after another

What you hear is your inner voice
Loving and safe
What you feel - dare I say that is
H O P E!

Seeping out from these
flower filled walls
rich in brown hues
like two of my favorite things:
coffee and nudes

Don't stop - Leap on!
down the hallway
into your song
playing on repeat
inside that whimsical mind

Now, you've entered the other realm
all here, too, play and create

Tip toe no more
Leap! they said
build an oasis that is yours
and yours alone

to share with the others - especially
the ones deep inside their own fears

For what you have conjured is
a space to grow
not stay the same

Run little girl!
Into this kaleidoscope world
and reign in kindness
for all who enter

Show them to touch their own hearts
Teach them to listen to their powerful voices
Encourage them to be seen
Love them for being heard

by Stephanie Williamson

Hallway

Rain tap tap tapping
Soft whorled fibers soothe my soul
Cottony tufts "Wow."

by Cheryl Bealer-Wynton

**Megan Wilson, *Home 1996 - 2008*, Office, 2008**

Curtain Walls

It is tempting to run my fingertips all over the mounds of curtain fabric sewed together and cut flowers loose from their entrapment. Like a rescue mission, I plan out what I’ll buy from Michael’s - sturdy scissors, a glue gun, wall adhesive tape. I save my cereal boxes, toilet paper rolls, and cardboard mailing material.

My neck needs an ice bath from all of the ceiling installation. My eyes burn from the light fixture’s fluorescent biting. Every wall is a different curtain, shade begets flowers that are just blooming for the first time.

Everything can be renewed, whether it’s the carpet or the bed or a pillowcase busting open.

Lacquer is smooth to the touch, even when there are divots. My hands appreciate the effort.

The biggest flower of them all, the grandest room in the house, the place that feeds and which hides.

by Dawn Angelicca Barcelona

greenmerge

the sky the lime
color of last summers
pond rafts
of egg of planet
ring carrying
passengers of stardust
intersecting currents
bisecting wouldbe
deities daisies
auburnturned above
worms tunneling
air into soil
air into bronchioles
internal branches catch
release labored
breath of heft rolling
rock up hillock
as long as you
like then let
roll float up
into any color
sky you wish ride
thermals to where
comeandgone
conjoin

by Rae Diamond

Rae Diamond is an artist, educator, and nature advocate, who weaves language, breath, sound, movement, and things found outside into intricate doorways that lead to vast worlds. Their poems appear in Dovecoat and The Arsonist, and her book, Cantigee, will be published by North Atlantic Books in 2022. https://www.raediamond.com

Mr. Gary On The Feedback Show

Home 1996-2008 also inspired media installation artist and filmmaker Lise Swenson to write, and shoot on site of the installation, a short experimental film, Mr. Gary on the Feedback Show. The film takes my conceptual and aesthetic framework and explores it through the film’s psychological perspective. What is external in my installation is internal in Swenson's film.