WALKER P. DOWNEY
ABOUT ME
I am a historian of modern/contemporary art and media writing mostly about sound, and an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
RECENT NEWS
In Spring 2023, I co-curated an exhibition at the New Bedford Art Museum with NBAM Executive Director Suzanne de Vegh. The show, titled “Sound in Space, Sound in Place,” featured celebrated and emerging sound artists, field recordings sourced from New Bedford residents, and experimental sound works by my own UMass Dartmouth students. Read the Boston Globe write-up here: https://bit.ly/482oRus.
CONTACT
NOTES FOR A COMING ATTRACTION
I died. Deader and deader. / "Little joke corpse!" Yeah, I shrank beyond belief; I'd even fit quite neatly / inside the bowl of my ridiculously / miniscule briarwood pipe. / Ishmael they call me, Father / Ishmael. I'm such a pipsqueak, though, / they have got to be kidding.
Read more...
I died. Deader and deader. / "Little joke corpse!" Yeah, I shrank beyond belief; I'd even fit quite neatly / inside the bowl of my ridiculously / miniscule briarwood pipe. / Ishmael they call me, Father / Ishmael. I'm such a pipsqueak, though, / they have got to be kidding.
Read more...
AUG 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
SHAMPOO
Incense clings to the Corpse's abdomen / Great is Allah! Not I for I was born / To loathe myself and drink through my thin skin / Evening's hope and the naked fright of dawn
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Incense clings to the Corpse's abdomen / Great is Allah! Not I for I was born / To loathe myself and drink through my thin skin / Evening's hope and the naked fright of dawn
Read more...
AUG 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
CROWNED HEAD
Madness thundery gist of dream and dross / Ring where the cave of future ring / Cherry between me and the boogeyman Nothingness / My wind-tossed head a flurry of feathers
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Madness thundery gist of dream and dross / Ring where the cave of future ring / Cherry between me and the boogeyman Nothingness / My wind-tossed head a flurry of feathers
Read more...
JUL 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
JUL 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
THE WING OF SLEEP
He waded all the way back up life's stream / And came out the other side / Lost where others wander not yet born
He dreamt he was dreaming / Changing planets / Sleeping only to awake over and over / To the clock of blood ticking in his head
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He waded all the way back up life's stream / And came out the other side / Lost where others wander not yet born
He dreamt he was dreaming / Changing planets / Sleeping only to awake over and over / To the clock of blood ticking in his head
Read more...
JUL 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
MASKED LIFE
A massive pale waxwork of a woma / Forever rotating in horrible slow motion, / The statue spins like a top on the grease of dreams, / A blind lighthouse whose eclipsed face is / Haloed with a numb nimbus of horror
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A massive pale waxwork of a woma / Forever rotating in horrible slow motion, / The statue spins like a top on the grease of dreams, / A blind lighthouse whose eclipsed face is / Haloed with a numb nimbus of horror
Read More...
JUN 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
VACANCY IN GLASS
To a palace made / Of wind / To a palace whose towers / Are pillars of fire by day / To an opal palace / In the sky's zenith heart
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To a palace made / Of wind / To a palace whose towers / Are pillars of fire by day / To an opal palace / In the sky's zenith heart
Read More...
JUN 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
WIND FIRE
They say when there was no / Such thing as time or place / The wind lived by itself / Whirling in empty space / To fill a hungry hear / Unborn with sighs until / From rubbing wind on wind
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They say when there was no / Such thing as time or place / The wind lived by itself / Whirling in empty space / To fill a hungry hear / Unborn with sighs until / From rubbing wind on wind
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MAY 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
TO THE NORTH WIND
Alive yet not alive you crawl in stone / Prisoner of an air castl / Lover in a dread / Crushed in advance / By the heavy heav / Marble anchor of the / Death you have been howling for for a hundred centuries
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Alive yet not alive you crawl in stone / Prisoner of an air castl / Lover in a dread / Crushed in advance / By the heavy heav / Marble anchor of the / Death you have been howling for for a hundred centuries
Read More...
APR 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
THE MYSTIC EGG
... And when the cycle of his sufferings ended / From an Antarctic refuge he ascended / Into the cold nude beauty of the night / Expanding, full of holes, immense yet light
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... And when the cycle of his sufferings ended / From an Antarctic refuge he ascended / Into the cold nude beauty of the night / Expanding, full of holes, immense yet light
Read More...
APR 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
INTO THE EYES OF NIGHT
A woman dozes on a roof her name is night / Ancient abandoned to the perils of intoxication / To sleep's fumbling treasons / Dreamer in an avalanche of slips / Ditched on a high glassy place to eyeball outer space
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A woman dozes on a roof her name is night / Ancient abandoned to the perils of intoxication / To sleep's fumbling treasons / Dreamer in an avalanche of slips / Ditched on a high glassy place to eyeball outer space
Read More...
MAR 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
THE PERPETUAL INCANTATION
That awful mask a snapshot
Amazed solitude
Transfixes on the surface
Of a perennial torrent flesh
Casual flesh
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That awful mask a snapshot
Amazed solitude
Transfixes on the surface
Of a perennial torrent flesh
Casual flesh
Read More...
MAR 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
︎
WHAT A HOWLING SHAME
What a howling shame
progress
has eliminated the usage
of the tinderbox
that pyrological machine
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What a howling shame
progress
has eliminated the usage
of the tinderbox
that pyrological machine
Read More...
MAR 2021
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-10: 0882681281
