Stare, by Andrena Zawinski

Street Scene, Vicksburg, Mississppi, photograph by Walker Evans (USA) 1936. (CC 4.0)

Stare

"Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. 
You are not here long."  Walker Evans
​
The small town 
windswept streets, 
their flophouses 
and weatherworn 
sharecropper porches 

hold the stare 
and want 
and will 
of those 
who people them. 

The speech 
of image, 
already past tense  
in the snap of shutter,
still endures 

like deep south rural
main streets impoverished
as dust bowl fields,
yet resilient
as life itself.

Andrena Zawinski

This poem was written in response to a whole exhibition of Walker Evans' work, not a single photograph. Walker Evans Cantor Arts exhibit at Stanford University, 2012

Andrena Zawinski has authored nine poetry collections of which three are full books, the most recent being Landings from Kelsay Books; a PEN Josephine Miles Award winner, Something About from Blue Light Press; and a Kenneth Patchen Prize, Traveling in Reflected Light from Pig Iron Press. Her poetry has received accolades for lyricism, form, spirituality, and social concern. She founded and runs the San Francisco Bay Area Women’s Poetry Salon and is Features Editor at PoetryMagazine.com