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Ada Zejun Shen: Symbiosis as Post-Anthropocene Metaphors September 18– December 6, 2025 Ada...

Ekphrastic poem

by Johnny Lin

Carving into the body To see what it’s made of Like a mountain full of problems upon problems Then fixed by more problems With the digestive system examined by little people And a hourglass of your life, As your time slowly drains away. The countdown to your death.

_______ for Ada Zejun Shen's piece, "Microbiome of Death," 2024

#poetry #ekphrastic poetry

Marie-Therese Nasah - Yeh Art Gallery Poem

picture of a picture of an averted gaze why does an open palm, an obscured face – trapped behind the glare of a washed-out frame – capture my attention?

a moth to a flame.

too late i realized our indelible attraction. my eyes locked with the ones behind your head, longing for a mythic pull –

one that blends with the haunted backrooms

fading in the recesses of my mind’s lonely bed.

with all my poetic paramours – emily and ocean plath and momtaza – you belong. a linguistic void, unfinished and misunderstood. a life worth feeling, fearing, faring,

and loving anyway.

only time will tell if you’ll linger in the corners of my mind. but i’m anxiously hoping – awaiting the day your frozen shame circles back and whispers my name.

#poetry #writing #art #photography

Owen Taylor - Yeh Art Gallery Poem

Can you speak with the eye?

Developed film

Ink on sheet

Enlarged pupils

Staring through windows

Or being stared at themselves

Voyeur

Like a billboard

Or an advertisement for contacts

And they talk across the room

Silently, eyes only

Darting looks and glances

Where printed texts are illegible

And the eyes lock in

So the conversation continues

#poetry #poem #creative writing

Christopher Banegas

KUNSANG GYATSO: A SPECK SWALLOWS THE SUN Yeh Art Gallery

Why do I keep returning to this circle A burnt orange sun, split by black lines Curator says: “precision and balance” I feel: “waiting, quiet tension” fragments orange warmth lines like questions A small black diamond, almost hidden Maybe balance is always just out of reach

A central, human‑like figure holds a glass sphere like a fragile planet; red hair fans into seed‑spirals and botanical motifs that blur the boundary between body and landscape. Around the figure, marine and terrestrial forms—octopus arms, shells, birds, and small mammals—interlock with anatomical and mythic details, creating a symmetrical, almost ritual composition that feels both scientific and uncanny.

Small letters beside elements give the piece a taxonomic air, as if the image were a cabinet of curiosities turned diagram: jars on a sill, labeled specimens, and microscopic patterns that insist on close reading. The work reads like a ledger of relations—recipes, lab notes, and tidepools folded into a single portrait—so the viewer moves between wonder and the sense that identity is braided from many small, living parts.

A sculpture of an apartment building really caught my eye. It is a tan brown four-story building with a sage green double door in the front. The third floor has pretty arched windows and the other floors have nice molding around the windows. What made it so interesting was that when you looked into each of the 12 windows, you could see little pieces of art inside. Some had peaceful mountain paintings, others showed birds flying in the sky. The sculpture was displayed on a shelf and the way it was made encouraged you to look inside closely. It reminded me of the phrase “living the city life” and made me think of words like busy, hustle and bustle, and sonder, the feeling you get when you realize everyone has their own story. The building made me think of the apartment buildings near my old home in Ridgewood, Queens, and also of my great-grandma’s old house. At first, I didn’t notice how much detail went into the inside of the sculpture. But later as I began to look deeper into the sculpture I saw it even had hardwood floors, white walls, and one room with a tiny fireplace. It felt like more than just a model of a building, it captured the feeling of city life and all the little stories happening behind each window.

Adrian Kubis 09/25/2025

Yeh Art Gallery Ekphrastics (ENG - 1100 - 122)

Olney Marie Ryland- Artist Artwork: 1702-1704 Weeksville Collection, 2023

The Quiet that Follows Summer

Why does the summer leave before I'm ready to say goodbye?

The hammock is all empty. The screen door doesn’t slam as much. Grass faded from green to gold. The lake is colder, grayer. Hummingbirds are now gone. It seems that the house is catching its breath.

The porch sags slightly but still holds. Crickets knit the air shut with sound. Pine trees crack under boots, the scent of sap, smoke, and rain hush. Smelling faintly the cedar and fall rain in the old rocking chair.

“Preserve the remaining homes, which now form the heart.” As this echoes through me The chair feels like home, what remains and still rocks. Carrying the weight of seasons and silence in its frame

The faint ring of sun-bleached wood beneath the chair, proof it sat there all summer, soaking the light, while everything else is moving.

Maybe summer doesn’t leave too soon. Maybe we just hold on to it for too long.

Art Gallery ekphrastic writing

Lit in a Global Context (ENG 1000)

Miniature House

A house of silence tall and bare Each window frames a breath of air No dolls inside just painted dreams Hung on walls in frozen scenes The door don’t open but invite A House not built to live but built to feel A hollow shell that paints can fill the emptiness.

-Misheel

Lit in a Global Context

Daniel Pinkhasov

107 Deli

Orange bricks, Twelve windows All closed and dim Blue door closed Gate covering the main door Everything is grey At the bottom A grey step waits 107 it was called

Paradox Through Art

Where do I find meaning in confusion?

Through the abstract form of many shapes, colors, and sizes,

And in accepting you must stop,

Looking for the meaning in a winter forest with many openings.

Everything is a paradox if you look deep,

Afterall, a dollar worth one, a quarter worth twenty-five, is an ambiguity in itself.

Please explore this link for writing ideas!

#poetry #Bernadette Mayer

Title: A walk towards growth

Painting:“Goddess of Tangerine”

Epkhastic poem:

Everything has a purpose, it take one to look

Odd numbers, color orange.

Stylistic masterpiece

What is the intention of images

Cement smell, tangerine

In a room that hums with silence,

the orange shrine stands

half altar, half question.

A circle burns at its center,

a sun that forgot the sky

and settled for the stillness of walls.

Its light does not move —

it listens.

Lines arc upward,

thin as thought,

as if gravity itself

were a prayer pulling homeward.

Two pyramids kneel below,

geometry learning reverence,

while the floor pale as breath

stretches out like time waiting to be filled.

There’s a chair by the door,

empty as an afterthought,

and I wonder who left

before the room began to glow.

Perhaps this is what faith looks like

when nothing left to give

a single red center,

a silent audience,

and the quiet knowing

that something unseen

is still at work inside the frame.

Andreas Charalambous

Lit in a global context

Dec, 4

Urbane Facades by OLNEY MARIE RYLAND

A square brown house. Flat walls like pressed clay. Windows cut evenly, white frames sharp against brick. Steps climbing up, wood rubbed smooth by hands and feet. I can almost smell the paint, sharp, chemical, new.

“Reimagined histories, facades holding memory.” Yes—holding memory. I call it quiet persistence. An ordinary dignity.

It reminds me of the houses I passed as a child. Silent. Windows closed. Curtains hiding what could not be said.

Who am I when the outside looks whole but the inside feels unfinished?

I missed the basement window before. Small. Low. Nearly hidden in stone. Light struggling in. Secrets pressing out.

Maybe I am the house. Whole, but layered. Still standing, even when unseen.

Adam Thanasules Will I always remember my childhood? Safe, warm feelings Windows are always open Like the door, never closed Familiar and welcome In the past hear the wood steps creak I forgot yet remember houses That look the same But not today

Yeh Art Gallery Ekphrastics Microbiome of death

Lit in a global context

Professor Brown's class

What part of me belongs to science, and what part is still mine?

A mountain folds like a body,

intestines curl inside a head.

Red beads scatter on white snow,

an hourglass trickles pills.

Less than half my cells are human

the rest, microscope travelers.

In death, that body opens:

a landscape, a hunting field, a playground

My grandfathers pill bottles,

the hospitals white sheets.

Tiny people climb intestines like hills,

lost in a maze of flesh and data

Maybe none of it is separate

Maybe my body has always been shared.

-Zuleyka Z.

Art Gallery Poem - Hailey Oswick

The image shows a colorful world full of textures. At the center stands a human like figure, squeezed into a corset shape, with red and beige skin. Thin, branch like strands reach out like veins or roots, twisting through the air. Around it are shapes that look like body parts and pieces of buildings, blending together like a mix of flesh and city. Warm lighting highlights the surfaces. Some smooth, some bumpy, some rough, making you imagine cool ceramic, soft fabric, and sharp metal. The air I imagine smells like varnish and dust, like something old just discovered.

The curator describes a world that’s messy, alive, and always changing a “thick, ongoing presence” where strange, earthy creatures “make and unmake; they are made and unmade.” To me, it feels like a mix of flesh and soil, something wild and tangled that holds memory and meaning. It’s not safe or simple, but it’s full of life.

My own words: a tangled symphony of flesh and architecture, where the figure is not just displayed but dissected, exposed, and glorified. It’s not just surreal.

Fragmented Reflection:

corset of bone

veins like subway lines

a body rebuilt

A Question:

What part of me have I tucked away so well that I forgot it was even there?

Rediscovered Detail:

I didn’t notice at first, but the corset like torso isn’t just for show it’s got these tiny holes, like vents or little wounds. They’re tucked into the shadows, easy to miss, but they make the figure feel kind of vulnerable, like it’s not just protected but also open. And those branches sticking out? They’re all uneven, twisting like they’re trying to grab something just out of reach. That messiness makes the whole thing feel alive, a little off balance but, in a good way.

Answering the Question:

Maybe the part I hid was the soft side I thought made me weak, but it’s the part that still reaches out, even when it’s scared.

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