Quaesitum by Kate Garrett
I hold a séance to contact
the person I was last week
I ask you to knock once for yes
and twice for no:
will I ever be myself again
and I ask you to spin the board
if you’re a good spirit
or a bad spirit (either will do)
we hold hands around the table
your invisible fingers in mine
we argue about who’s pushing
the planchette when it spells out
fuckyouiamnevercominghome
but I’m already telling you it wasn’t me
I’d never make it say those things
the person I was last week
I ask you to knock once for yes
and twice for no:
will I ever be myself again
and I ask you to spin the board
if you’re a good spirit
or a bad spirit (either will do)
we hold hands around the table
your invisible fingers in mine
we argue about who’s pushing
the planchette when it spells out
fuckyouiamnevercominghome
but I’m already telling you it wasn’t me
I’d never make it say those things
Kate Garrett writes and edits. Her work is widely published, most recently in After the Pause, Déraciné Magazine, Sad Girl Review, and Neologism Poetry Journal, among others, and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. She is the author of several chapbooks, and her first full-length collection, The saint of milk and flames, was published in April 2019 by Rhythm & Bones Press. Born and raised in rural southern Ohio, Kate moved to the UK in 1999, where she still lives in Sheffield with her husband, five children, and a sleepy cat.
Julia Forrest is a Brooklyn based artist. She works strictly in film and prints in a darkroom she built within her apartment. Her own art has always been her top priority in life and in this digital world, she will continue to work with old processing. Anything can simply be done in photoshop, she prefers to take the camera, a tool of showing reality, and experiment with what she can do in front of the lens. Julia is currently working as a teaching artist at the Brooklyn Museum, Medgar Evers College, USDAN Art Center and Lehigh University. As an instructor, she thinks it is important to understand that a person can constantly stretch and push the boundaries of their ideas with whatever medium of art they choose. Her goal is for her audience to not only enjoy learning about photography, but to see the world in an entirely new way and continue to develop a future interest in the arts. You can find her at her WEBSITE and on instagram: @Juliajuliaajuliaa