Writing Yourself Into the Narrative

The roots of the word exhibition are instructive: from ex "out" + habere "to hold." An exhibition holds out a particular narrative, a thesis, and framing of a subject. A visitor can choose to accept what an exhibition offers, or refuse to take it, in part or in whole. 

Poet and editor Esther Belin’s poetic response to Harriet Monroe & the Open Door provides a different relationship between exhibition and visitor. In her poem, “Ode in Celebration of Harriet’s Open Door”, the relationship is collaborative, relational, and situated in overlapping and tangled individual and communal histories. Harriet Monroe is a part of Esther Belin’s narrative. Esther Belin is equally a part of Harriet Monroe’s narrative. Her poem begins by listing the genocidal Treaties and Acts that created Harriet Monroe’s Chicago of 1912, and this Chicago of 2023. She writes: “dear Harriet, those are some facts that place me in your narrative.”

As you explore Harriet Monroe & the Open Door, note where and when and how you are a part of the narrative, whether or not your presence is recognized or acknowledged. What is your place within the narrative of Poetry? Of publishing? Chicago? America? You are encouraged to gather language and images from the exhibition materials that are points of overlap, connection, friction, or distance. Using your notes and gathered language and images, write a poem that directly addresses a person, place, or thing (concrete or abstract) connected to that narrative. Your poem can be a space to name your experience, retell the narrative from your position, or just explore.