Reposted by Annie Wenstrup
Join Dianne Bilyak on Friday as she reads from her memoir Nothing Special at the North Kingstown Free Library! Register to see her from 6:00-7:30 at the #linkinbio.
#memoir #library #rhodeisland
Annie Wenstrup
@akwenstrup.bsky.social
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Dena’ina poet. The Museum of Unnatural Histories, Wesleyan University Press, March 2025. Here for the fish.
![Excerpt from The Museum of Unnatural Histories HR Guide
[following text is in a box]
Policies and Procedures
IX.
When providing interpretive text for images where the subjects are not named. The Curator of the Museum of Unnatural Histories follows best practices, as outlined below:
1. Wrestle with the naming.
2. Refuse the label anonymous.
3. Ask, without irony, what's left.
4. The naming.
5. Memorize her face.
6. Remember you are a creature
7. soft and tender.
8. remember: names are only part of love.
9. Make an offering.
10. Your struggle is not the offering.
11. The only offering is tenderness.
12. Name once known by those that beheld her.
13. Make an offering.
14. Call her Precious.
15. Call her Beloved.
For further assistance please contact your mom, a close friend, or your mentor. The Department of Policies and Procedures is unavailable for assistance on this matter.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zdfxqin2sdxjsbsmrcjuqbw4/bafkreibpmmegmp7tmrdvno3dtzqpitije3jlmh4bhjhijy3gqzdezhxrca)
![Self-Portrait as Jackson Pollock
You'll need a ladder to see
this one
in its entirety. One
with four steady legs.
The kind that won't
wobble when you stand
on the step below
the top one that warns
you not to step any higher.
You'll need to risk the final step
to see this one.
I don't make the rules.
I only make the mess
that's said to be art
but looks exactly
like a mess.
I have a gift for mimesis,
I've been told.
[the following is in a box and in smaller print]
Before the mind, the heart
resumes
its beating.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:zdfxqin2sdxjsbsmrcjuqbw4/bafkreicfjucjgmnf4fovxc3hohsjrnfkmqwlzyq7n5y4lxqpfp6tmu3gzq)
