The Personhood Project Episode 29: Diannely Antigua

In this penultimate episode of The Personhood Project, poet Diannely Antigua sits down with host Aaron Tyler Hand for a conversation about the intersection of healing and craft. In the episode, the two discuss Antigua’s poetry collections Ugly Music and Good Monster, and how diary-entry poems can serve as a bridge between the therapeutic and the artistic. They also discuss the importance of noticing the poetic in the mundane, the role of community in healing, and how reclaiming one's story by sharing it can be a powerful act of care and resistance.

Poems:

Broken

God uses broken things

broken down, crushed to powder,

poured out until empty

then filled with Him

submitted to His will

as the Son was

broken record

for the record

letters words love

playback anticipated

by Our hearts

Workaholics

work work work

addicted to work

to the detriment of

relations

and now

life goes on

outside work

and then

forgiveness reaches you

wherever you are

with my love.

When I’m with mom

When I’m with mom I smile, she smiles

and laughs sometimes, much louder from

the belly now I know her humorous funny

bone; and that is how I heal the years of

pain and struggle we were given by

serendipity.

When I’m with mom time stops for us;

but she still watches the clock

ten minutes behind her I felt all my

life, but now I ask her to catch up,

and she does– me, in her china doll

arms, no clock, no time, just love.

Court

on the tennis court, ruthless her

spikes untouchable; forty love for

mom. ball whizzing past like a

bullet off the court, generous,

providing supplies to single moms

in need, giving love, caring advice

for the text generation to win

at life, at parenthood, at

marriage, the ball now in their

court. in court– supportive, building

my character for the judge while

someone I love who hates me

continues their self destructive

spiral that sucked me into its

vortex but can’t hold up

against mom.