Week Eight: Martha Silano Tribute

Week Eight at Moulin à Nef:

I’m out of my depth trying to describe the work of the phenomenal visual artists at Moulin à Nef, so please enjoy the work featured at Barbara Campisi’s open studio on Monday (see below), along with a short description from her website.

I am sorry to see her leave tomorrow!

This show, A Sound of Light, appeared around the bend and took place in February/March, 2019, at FiveMyles.

polygal, wire, LEds, people, music, 144 x 120 x 240”

In this all-encompassing maze-like installation, LEDs form colored lines of light when reflected off translucent ‘walls’, confounding any sense of orientation. The viewers, as they walk inside the piece, complete it through their process of discovery. During performances, dancers wearing lights move through and activate the light-based artwork, creating moving lines of light. “A Sound Of Light, appearing around the bend” is in many ways inspired by a previous piece, entitled “The Cave”.

To read the Press, click the links below:

Art Spiel
The Brooklyn Rail
NYFA
BK Made interview for BRIC TV

BARBARA CAMPISI is a visual artist living and working in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She holds a BS in Fine Art from Skidmore College and an MA in painting. She has lived and worked in Brooklyn, NY, since 1991.

https://www.barbaracampisi.com/

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I have been holed up here at VCCA in France, Moulin à Nef, for a long time (56 days), and now have just 22 days left, and I have been ruminating a bit (see last week’s post) about artistic endeavors and why we all bother.

This week, I was also reading through Diagram, where I was surprised to find two of Martha Silano’s poems. I took a class with Martha via Hugo House in Winter 2021, during the tail end of the pandemic, and she was such a fantastic teacher. I had signed up for the class because I have always admired her poetry, but during that ten-week session, I came to know her as a person. She was as great a human as a poet, which, as we all know, can not always be said. Sadly, she received her ALS diagnosis soon after the class ended.

I have always wanted to share how much her kindness meant to me, and Ander Monson, the editor at Diagram, has said it so succinctly below that I am pasting it in here as a reminder that as Monson says, “We put so much of our secret selves in the world in these semi-anonymous ways and may never know the degree to which they ever echo in a reader or another human.”

Your work touched me, Martha. You were a magnificent person. I wish you were still with us.

xxoo Kelly

DIAGRAM 26.1: FROM THE EDITORS

I was very sorry to hear of the passing of Martha Silano in May 2025. I had read and published Martha and her work many times over the years, and I was always thrilled to encounter her work again. I had forgotten we had accepted these two poems just months before she died, and when they worked their way through the production queue suddenly seeing her name and her poems in our inbox again hit me very hard indeed. I had not been keeping up with her recent work as closely as I would have liked, and her death caught me by surprise.

Rereading both of these poems and the accompanying materials she had sent, I was struck by the candor of her response to one of our standard contractual questions, asking for a writer’s email if they’d like us to list it in their bio. She wrote her email, then the following: “or, if I’m dead, [another email address], my partner and literary executor.”

I’ve been editing and publishing DIAGRAM for a quarter of a century, and I’m sure many of the writers we’ve published during that time have died. I know a handful by name and by poem. I bet there’s a lot more I don’t know because it’s kind of impossible to pay that much attention and have anything left for those close to us.

It’s so strange to be reminded that as readers we know writers often exclusively through their work. Sometimes that work is part of the person that their families and loved ones get to know as well, and sometimes that work is something else, another self that writers preserve for themselves and all of us out there reading their work: readers. tweeters, editors, agents, publishers, randos who show up at an event. We put so much of our secret selves in the world in these semi-anonymous ways and may never know the degree to which they ever echo in a reader or another human. Unless we reach out to tell them so, that is. I’m sorry, Martha, that I never got the chance to tell you how your work moved me, and how much I appreciated it.

To be honest, my life is often busy enough that I don’t always even have the bandwidth to read the acceptance emails that we get back until we get into the production process, which can take up to a year.

But reading that simple note—with the knowledge and the bravery it implies—against the absolute joy of these poems in the face of what she had known was coming, reminds me of how powerful and beautiful this whole endeavor is.

It’s only a simple sentence. It’s only two simple poems (well, poems like Martha’s are never so simple, are they?). It’s only a magazine. It’s only an online magazine no less. But these relationships that I form with the work we publish have power too. It’s so strange, isn’t it, to know a writer largely through their work, and not personally. I’m reminded of a quote from one of my very favorite video games, What Remains of Edith Finch, in which Edith tells us, as we understand the vastness of what’s been happening in the stories we’re playing, the following:

If we lived forever, maybe we’d have time to understand things. But as it is, I think the best we can do is try to open our eyes, and appreciate how strange and brief all of this is.

It’s not a poem, and it’s not a Martha Silano poem, and Martha’s poems will always speak for themselves, but it’s a reminder of how little we get to experience and know during our (brief) time here, and I agree with a line from this last poem of Martha’s, which is where I’ll end:

“I wish you weren’t dead.”

—Ander Monson

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Here is Martha Silano’s amazing work on Diagram.

And here’s my poem on Diagram.

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I am offering some classes this summer and would love to see you there if you are interested in either generating some new poems or reading a few.

See below.

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1. Poetry Pop-Up Sessions

The Summer Poetry Pop-Up track is flexible and accommodates summer schedules for those who don’t want the commitment of a multi-week course. These sessions are generative.

To maximize our time together, each session follows this schedule:

1. Prep: Two weeks prior to your session, you will receive a writing prompt.

2. The Poems: You have the freedom to draft a new poem based on the provided prompt or, if you are currently immersed in an ongoing project, you may choose to submit another poem of your choice.

3. Workshop: Participants should email their poem to the rest of the group two days before the live session.

4. Workshop: During the two-hour Zoom meeting, we will review one poem per person.

Schedule and Pricing

Each session is priced at $35. You may register for any individual session; there is no requirement to take these in any specific order.

Session Dates:

Wednesday, June 10th, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM (two spots remain 5/9/26)

Wednesday, June 17th, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM (three spots remain 5/9/26)

Wednesday, June 24th, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM (two spots remain 5/9/26)

Wednesday, July 1st, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM (sold out 5/9/26)

Wednesday, July 8th, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM (two spots remain 5/9/26)

Wednesday, July 15th, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM (sold out 5/9/26)

Wednesday, July 22nd, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM (one spot remains 5/9/26)

Wednesday, July 29th, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM (one spot remains 5/10/26)

Each Pop-Up is capped at 10 participants

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2. Deep Reading Series

Each two-hour session is a deep dive into the mechanics of poetry writing.

Note on Exercises: Depending on the length of our discussion, prompts may be completed during our live session or given as “take-home” inspiration to be completed afterward.

Featured Books:

1. Ars Poeticas” by Juliana Spahr. Investigate the “meta” nature of the craft with Juliana Spahr, a winner of the Pulitzer Prize. This session will explore how we write about the act of writing itself, using Spahr’s collection as our guide.

Date: Tuesday, June 23rd, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM (four spots remain 5/9/26)

Cost: $40

2. “Blood Dazzler” by Patricia Smith. We will discuss Smith’s ability to give voice to the voiceless and the elemental power of her lyricism, followed by generative work that explores the poetic sequence.

Date: Tuesday, July 21st, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Cost: $40 (three spots remain 5/9/26)

3. “I Do Know Some Things” by Richard Siken. Explore the obsessive, cinematic, and visceral world of Richard Siken. This session will focus on the use of repetition and desire as driving forces in poetic structure, concluding with exercises to sharpen imagery.

Date: Tuesday, August 11th, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Cost: $40 (three spots remain 5/9/26)

Capacity: The Reading Series is limited to 8 participants per session.

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All workshops are hosted via Zoom. A stable internet connection and a quiet space for discussion are recommended.

Because our class sizes are intentionally small to prioritize the writer’s experience, slots fill very quickly and are first-come, first-served.

To secure your place, please email me at kfordon450@gmail.com as soon as possible. In your message, clearly list the specific dates you wish to join.

**Please feel free to forward to anyone you think might be interested!

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And lastly, some pictures from France: