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
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