Sheathed by the Wing of an Albatross

Photo courtesy of Ikechukwu Sharpe.

Sheathed by the Wing of an Albatross (2024) is a collection of poems that is quite sentimental to me. I crawl out of my comfort blanket and discuss my life story. It is quite healing to infiltrate childhood memories (especially traumatic ones) and dissect them. I removed the darkest poem from the collection, “We Hold Hands.” The poem talks about my father and the incorrigible addiction that ultimately led to his death. However, it was the foundation for this collection. What exactly did I want to investigate? Childhood, immigration, identity, and the psychological turmoil that follows. I want the reader to grasp the duality that is immigration for a child. A developing mind constructed by internal conflict. Individually, the poems stand tall as their own respective memories. Cohesively, they tell the story of my family, how we endured and prevailed. The poems are all tethered by dualities. Darkness and light. The moon and the sun. Water and fire. The vast infinite and the solitude. The powerful virago and the helpless non-calcified goo. The goo, however, endures and it usually finds its shell. Home.

Circa Fall of 2024. New York.

Images printed at K. Caraccio Print Studio.

Drypoint & collagraph viscosity images printed on Cream BFK Rives.

Type Pica No. 12 on 1954 Olympia De luxe German SM3 Typewriter on Nepalese mulberry paper.