Knowledge of Wounds. a return to the fire, by devynn emory
Photo by Heather Cromartie
Knowledge of Wounds. a return to the fire
by devynn emory
Knowledge of Wounds
Performance Space New York, NYC
January 2023
stepping into the third iteration of a mid-winter gathering hosted by the dad duo across land and water - SJ Norman who is Wiradjuri and Joseph M. Pierce who is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation - Knowledge of Wounds has become a space that has invited growth in my kinship and “relations across Indigenous time and space.” this language offered by Norman and Pierce welcomes us to expand. in these spaces we aren’t decolonizing but repopulating, engraving our sweat into the walls, exhaling with each other, becoming one another’s branches of oxygen as the trees continue to be replaced by condos here in Lenapehoking. i enter the building of Performance Space New York, the air lingering with the fire from last night. i open a heavy black door and enter into this experience of a sacred haunting. we are invited to enter this room/installation/portal/vibration, fiercely crafted by composer Chloe Alexandra Thompson who is Beaver Lake Cree and audio-visual artist DB Amorin who is Pacific Islander. i join the whispers and echos of nine illustrious Indigiqueer and Two-Spirit poets from four continents. amongst words spoken, written and sounded, not intended to translate to the english language - the space is filled with the Wiradjuri principle of slowness, gentleness and respect. i am immediately pulled toward laying my heavy body down on a bed with soft black sheepskin leather sheets. the walls are dripping with microbes and fractals, beckoning me toward the only next right thing possible - to listen. i am still holding the fire within, enlivened by poets Demian DinéYazhi’ who is Diné of the Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá and Tódích’íí’nii clans and Jazz Money who is Wiradjuri. this fire held each winter reminds me to slow, to warm, to rest, to recover and to be with the body memories of the poets swirling and dancing in the space. the choreography of sound waves insist on the deep medicine of pause. occasionally i roll to my back and look toward the ceiling. gentle crème fabric billows toward me as if the clouds are falling with marbled blotches of color flashing to signal and call out - it’s ok to let go… and sometimes, let the memory be larger than the imposed realities. when speaking with composer Thompson, i understand that Thompson and Amorin are approaching the concept of rest from a sovereign space. that both the freedom to rest, and the acknowledgement of tiredness are present in the room. i close my eyes again, noticing the crafted pauses built into the sounds and visuals, encouraging me to do the same. as i exhale, i am prompted by the voice of Jazz Money suggesting me to ‘spiral down,’ to “follow this path higher,” as i slip “through the dark places of campfire sinking into those singing stars.” poet Hannah Donnelly utters into the space - “why isn’t anyone asleep? where are all these people coming from?” i shift my body to hear Ellen van Neerven remind those of us in the room to “rest and recover” into “sea dreams” and i wrestle with my insides into a half sleep state as Demian DinéYazhi’ envokes my body by uttering into the room, “colors. flesh. exposed. shadow. innards. inside.” Driftpile Cree writer Billy-Ray Belcourt journeys me elsewhere asking…“it doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to the horses… what if i belong to the horses?” i want to stay here or leave with the horses through the screeching open circles floating in the space who risk swallowing me so i can finally tear away from extractive jobs and pressures. for now, i join my kin in the “making, un-making and re-making of worlds”[1], grateful for this space of soft leathered respite.
-devynn emory, Lenape/Blackfoot
[1] SJ Norman and Joseph M Pierce, wall text, Knowledge of Wounds, Performance Space New York, 2023