Hymnal by Linda Ravenswood
And there she was —
on Broadway
between 49th
and 50th —
and you know
what that means,
even if you don’t
know the city
you can still feel it —
because New York
is everything.
And
I hailed —
Toni Morrison !
And she said —
You know
I am !
And I said —
Tell me
you didn’t
win the Nobel Prize
for those stories !
And
she threw
her head
all around
and said
Girl,
You know I did !
And we laughed
and crossed each other
on the sidewalk.
And
smiling
I kept
looking
back of me
at how
she was
going along
like you do —
but then —
I just kept
walking
til
I heard
quick steps
behind me
and
I turned around —
and her face
was in my face
and she stopped
a second
to catch
her breath
and
she told me
something
I’ll never forget.
____________________
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Linda Ravenswood’s Artist Statement:
Mainly a performative artist (BFA, CalArts, 2000) with shows focusing on sound art and installation / and
temporary physical endurance pieces in nature, Linda’s work presents as visual and sonic sculptures that make
verbal, gestural, and collaborative requests of viewers and participants.
Whether using skills as singer, writer, director, or performer in a landscape, (industrial elevator or open field) the
hope in presenting work is to reach the viewer in a stirring, visceral, evocative way.
With an aim towards inquiry, tantalization, and uncovering, she speaks, stands, beckons, and reminds viewers to
hold memory, history, place and lineage as holy, yet available markers. In these ways, Linda has evolved an arts
practice holding a strong and defining spatial, and theatrical course. Recent work (2014 2016) has appeared, or been
commissioned at Cornell University, The Broad Theatre, AWP Pen USA, The Google Corporation, The Los
Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, The Angel’s Gate Cultural Centre, The Artery (Los Angeles), The Bootleg Theatre
(Los Angeles), Gallery 16 (San Francisco), The Lancaster Museum, The Hollywood Fringe Festival and
Craftswoman House. She has been published in 30 literary journals, her music has appeared in 3 documentary films
(PBS), she has 4 books in print (Sybaritic Press, Mouthfeel Press, Gallery 16 Press, LACMA Press forthcoming),
and she is a 2016 Vermont Studio Centre fellow in Poetry. Twice nominated for The Pushcart Prize for Poetry,
Linda is a lecturer, dramaturg and workshop presenter, most recently teaching at Occidental College. Linda
Ravenswood is NDN, First Nation, (Pokanoket Nation) a Mayflower descendent on her mother’s side, and an
Indigenous Mestiza from Baja California Sur on her father’s side. She was raised by Holocaust survivors from
WWII.
