Litany for Survival
Jill Khoury
With gratitude for the work of Lucille Clifton and Audre Lorde
With gratitude for the work of Lucille Clifton and Audre Lorde
Praise the bloodred freckle on my thigh
Speck of rust that will never wash out
Praise the mole that rests between my clavicles
Like a brown diamond—the doc says
Keep an eye on
Praise the gnarled left toes with pinkpainted nails
They furl in the lineup, will not sit right
Without a brace
Praise to the ear that feels too well the earth’s orbit
Its axial tilt that lilts me into
Ataxia
Praise the right eye asymmetrical
Its vision is a mystery to me
Its wander
Exposes the shining white sclera
Veined in rose
Praise the brow made surly when the left eye
Tries to focus, triangular gulf of decreased collagen
Praise it!
For I am an intense woman and it shows on my brow
Praise the large knees that knock and wobble
The demure points of my elbows
Praise the ink with which I ornament
Praise the sacred code within it
Praise the fascia that binds me like chainmail
Arouses electric constellations beyond their limits
Praise the pain for it makes me dangerous
Praise the hips that roll and curve like an Impressionist farmscape
Praise the hips and their ghostly graffiti
Praise the shins, the calves, their veiny glyphs
Praise the knots of the spine but don’t press them
Praise the parasympathetic nervous system
And its laissez-faire policies
Praise the fork-tailed sylph
In my amygdala
Praise her enchanting, and praise
Her in dullness
Praise her generous
And praise her needy
Praise all her astonishing
Alarms, but mostly
Praise this body
For nothing has killed it yet
Even my own two hands
Speck of rust that will never wash out
Praise the mole that rests between my clavicles
Like a brown diamond—the doc says
Keep an eye on
Praise the gnarled left toes with pinkpainted nails
They furl in the lineup, will not sit right
Without a brace
Praise to the ear that feels too well the earth’s orbit
Its axial tilt that lilts me into
Ataxia
Praise the right eye asymmetrical
Its vision is a mystery to me
Its wander
Exposes the shining white sclera
Veined in rose
Praise the brow made surly when the left eye
Tries to focus, triangular gulf of decreased collagen
Praise it!
For I am an intense woman and it shows on my brow
Praise the large knees that knock and wobble
The demure points of my elbows
Praise the ink with which I ornament
Praise the sacred code within it
Praise the fascia that binds me like chainmail
Arouses electric constellations beyond their limits
Praise the pain for it makes me dangerous
Praise the hips that roll and curve like an Impressionist farmscape
Praise the hips and their ghostly graffiti
Praise the shins, the calves, their veiny glyphs
Praise the knots of the spine but don’t press them
Praise the parasympathetic nervous system
And its laissez-faire policies
Praise the fork-tailed sylph
In my amygdala
Praise her enchanting, and praise
Her in dullness
Praise her generous
And praise her needy
Praise all her astonishing
Alarms, but mostly
Praise this body
For nothing has killed it yet
Even my own two hands
Jill Khoury is interested in the intersection of poetry, gender, and disability. She edits Rogue Agent, a journal of embodied poetry and art, and has two chapbooks--Borrowed Bodies (Pudding House, 2009) and Chance Operations (Paper Nautilus, 2016) and a full-length collection, Suites for the Modern Dancer (Sundress Publications, 2016). Find her at jillkhoury.com.
About the work: “ “Litany for Survival.” There are so many reasons I shouldn’t be on this earth. I was born very premature and almost died twice during my infancy. I made a suicide attempt in my twenties. Multiple disabilities mean that my life feels perilous. Most of my adulthood has been learning how to embrace my imperfect self, a self that sometimes feels it was not made for this world. I think many women feel this way at times. In “A Litany for Survival,” Lorde writes, “For those of us / who were imprinted with fear / like a faint line in the center of our foreheads / learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk…. // “when we speak we are afraid //….but when we are silent / we are still afraid /// so it is better to speak / remembering were never meant to survive.” Clifton writes “won’t you celebrate with me / what i have shaped into / a kind of life? I had no model. // ….come celebrate / with me that everyday / something has tried to kill me / and has failed.” These are statements from two powerful female voices who have had to carve out their lives against oppression and difficulty, who ended up being bards for their generation. I didn’t have good role models to give my life a healthy start. I think it is important especially as we age to mother ourselves into existence to speak bravely or else someone more powerful will try to write our own narrative from their point of view. “Dangerous woman.” “Unhealthy woman.” “Unfit woman.” “Weak woman.”
My poem “Litany for Survival” (which I actually titled before discovering the Lorde poem) is me trying to do this active healthy mothering which I never had: bless this part and praise this part and celebrate the fact that I have a voice; I can use it; it is valid and necessary.”
About the work: “ “Litany for Survival.” There are so many reasons I shouldn’t be on this earth. I was born very premature and almost died twice during my infancy. I made a suicide attempt in my twenties. Multiple disabilities mean that my life feels perilous. Most of my adulthood has been learning how to embrace my imperfect self, a self that sometimes feels it was not made for this world. I think many women feel this way at times. In “A Litany for Survival,” Lorde writes, “For those of us / who were imprinted with fear / like a faint line in the center of our foreheads / learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk…. // “when we speak we are afraid //….but when we are silent / we are still afraid /// so it is better to speak / remembering were never meant to survive.” Clifton writes “won’t you celebrate with me / what i have shaped into / a kind of life? I had no model. // ….come celebrate / with me that everyday / something has tried to kill me / and has failed.” These are statements from two powerful female voices who have had to carve out their lives against oppression and difficulty, who ended up being bards for their generation. I didn’t have good role models to give my life a healthy start. I think it is important especially as we age to mother ourselves into existence to speak bravely or else someone more powerful will try to write our own narrative from their point of view. “Dangerous woman.” “Unhealthy woman.” “Unfit woman.” “Weak woman.”
My poem “Litany for Survival” (which I actually titled before discovering the Lorde poem) is me trying to do this active healthy mothering which I never had: bless this part and praise this part and celebrate the fact that I have a voice; I can use it; it is valid and necessary.”
The Art
“Dance in morning”
Acrylic on canvas
16''x10''
2014
Pj Holliday is an artist and writer. She studied studio art at The University of Houston where she earned a BA in creative writing with a concentration in poetry and won the “Outstanding Honors Thesis Award” for 2014. As an expressionist, Pj explores both abstraction and surrealism in her art and always seeks to divert from her own previous approaches to art. Pj’s first art exhibit at Art Forums in Kemah, Texas was a response to how environment disrupts or enhances the creative process. In her second exhibit, which showed at Bacchus wine bar in League City, Texas, Pj presented a series related to feminism and beauty redefined through surrealist images of the female form. Her third art show in February of 2016 at Cut and Color Bar Salon in Seabrook, Texas, was held in conjunction with Sophia Collelo and showcased her latest work in abstract expressionism, focusing on emotional responses to color and space. Her artwork is regularly purchased and she works on commissioned pieces. Pj is currently an MFA candidate at Regis University in her thesis semester where she is studying creative writing in poetry. Her poetry has appeared in the San Jacinto College Literary Magazine.
