WALKER P. DOWNEY
ABOUT ME
I am an interdisciplinary scholar writing on art, music, and technology, and an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Art Education, Art History, & Media Studies at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
I received my PhD in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art from MIT in 2022.
RECENT NEWS
I am currently collaborating with historian Katsushi Nakagawa (Yokohama National University) on an article mapping the development of sound art in Japan. It will appear in the last of six volumes comprising A Cultural History of Asian Art, an expansive cross-historical survey due out in 2028 through Bloomsbury.
CONTACT
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-13: 978-0882681283
ISBN-10: 0882681281
ISBN-13: 978-0882681283
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.
Being dead means
very light housekeeping.
It's dark,
and cold.
Cold as the dawn of a new
Ice Age. A sage frostbitten
under gelid palmtrees. The pallor
of one's foibles.
Dark: A rat standing
at attention on the tip of his
hairless tail squealing bloody
murder without the slightest movement of his snout.
Cold: Across an almond-green plain
a procession of pale blue elephants
walking backwards.
Dark: A diminutive stringbean of a rat hovers
on dragonfly wings.
Cold: A wee purple face glares out of a winejar's
bulging glassy midriff.
Dark: Two perfectly identical human mouths
kiss each other to death.
Cold: A truncated male torso
gives with a significant wink.
Dark: Above clouds or
black sands. Idols of old religions
set up. Facing them,
horror in tar: the grin of certain dead people.
Cold ...—Polar ...— I'm entombed
"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.
Being dead means
very light housekeeping.
It's dark,
and cold.
Cold as the dawn of a new
Ice Age. A sage frostbitten
under gelid palmtrees. The pallor
of one's foibles.
Dark: A rat standing
at attention on the tip of his
hairless tail squealing bloody
murder without the slightest movement of his snout.
Cold: Across an almond-green plain
a procession of pale blue elephants
walking backwards.
Dark: A diminutive stringbean of a rat hovers
on dragonfly wings.
Cold: A wee purple face glares out of a winejar's
bulging glassy midriff.
Dark: Two perfectly identical human mouths
kiss each other to death.
Cold: A truncated male torso
gives with a significant wink.
Dark: Above clouds or
black sands. Idols of old religions
set up. Facing them,
horror in tar: the grin of certain dead people.
Cold ...—Polar ...— I'm entombed