Adrian Piper τυφλός τά τ᾽ ὦτα τόν τε νοῦν τά τ᾽ ὄμματ᾽ εἶ Oedipus to Tiresias* Adrian Piper, our Tiresias, From age to age From Thebes to Thebes From Africa to Europe To America Tiresias of our time and all time. You who were female Are now male And again a female “a sweet young thing”. You who were black Now white, now black Again, are black and white. Our Tiresias Mediatrix, What was it like? Our Tiresias Metamatrix, How did it feel? Our Tiresias Meretrix-- No, you turn no tricks, But tricks of the media, Media tricks, So turn again. Daughter of Ham and Amon And Dam of Hammon[s?] Daughter of Man and Aton And Man of Manhattan Daughter of Isis and Osiris Sister of Whorus [?] Beloved of Ra Queen of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms Of East and West Of Midtown and Uptown Of Nevada and Times Square And of Nevada in Times Square Lady of the corner and the [lacuna] Lady of columns and stepped pyramids Of obelisks and stelae and amphitheatres Sweet and low [lacuna] Canopi Are you A kinder, gentler Cleopatra, Who trods around the pools of Canopus At Canopus and Canopus of Tivoli, Hadriana Auletes, Daughter of Piper? Hap(p)y were we who heard no evil Hap(p)y were we who saw no evil Hap(p)y were we who spoke no evil Baboon-headed were we. Are you the Pied Piper, the Colored Piper, Piping, prodding, pushing? Pushing it? Pipe up. No, you are not. You’re not pushy You’re not sneaky You’re not lazy You’re not noisy You’re not vulgar You’re not rowdy You’re not horny You’re not scary You’re not shiftless You’re not crazy You’re not servile You’re not stupid You’re not dirty You’re not smelly You’re not childish You’re not evil TURN TURN TURN TURN And turn again. Adrian Piper, our Tiresias: Tell us what it’s like, What it is. John J. Trause *“You are blind in your ears and mind as well as in your eyes.” Sophocles. Oedipus Tyrannos, line 371. “Adrian Piper” was previously published in John J. Trause’s Picture This: For Your Eyes and Ears (Dos Madres Press, 2016), and at Infinity's Kitchen. John J. Trause, the Director of Oradell Public Library and formerly the Reference / Periodicals librarian at The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York, is the author of Why Sing? (Sensitive Skin Press, 2017), a book of traditional and experimental poems; Picture This: For Your Eyes and Ears (Dos Madres Press, 2016), a book of poems on art, film, and photography; Exercises in High Treason (great weather for MEDIA, 2016), a book of fictive translations, found poems, and manipulated texts; Eye Candy for Andy (13 Most Beautiful… Poems for Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests, Finishing Line Press, 2013); Inside Out, Upside Down, and Round and Round (Nirala Publications, 2012); Seriously Serial (Poets Wear Prada, 2007; rev. ed. 2014); and Latter-Day Litany (Éditions élastiques, 1996), the latter staged Off Broadway. His translations, poetry, and visual work appear internationally in many journals and anthologies, including The Antioch Review, the artists' periodical Crossings, the Dada journal Maintenant, the journal Offerta Speciale, the Great Weather for Media anthologies It’s Animal but Merciful(2012) and I Let Go of the Stars in My Hand (2014), and Rabbit Ears: TV Poems (NYQ Books, 2015). Marymark Press has published his visual poetry and art as broadsides and sheets. He is the subject of a 30-on-30-in-30 essay on The Operating System, written by Don Zirilli, and an author of an essay on Baroness Elsa at the same site, both in April 2016. He has shared the stage with Steven Van Zandt, Anne Waldman, Karen Finley, Andrei Codrescu, and Jerome Rothenberg; the page with Billy Collins, Lita Hornick, William Carlos Williams, Woody Allen, Ted Kooser, Victor Buono, and Pope John Paul II; and the cage with the Cumaean Sibyl, Ezra Pound, Hannibal Lector, Andrei Chikatilo, and George “The Animal” Steele. He is a founder of the William Carlos Williams Poetry Cooperative in Rutherford, N. J., and the former host and curator of its monthly reading series.
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February 2025
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