Corbin Louis
oh you damaged bird
which i have spent four days heaving
out of my guts, you broken thing
with your shattered wings, flapping
on the ground, all of you, trying so
hard to rise, you little bird, snapped
clean, you hollow row of bones, what
song, I have pushed and pushed, my
hardest, just to gag you up, so that
you might come out and fly
***
A recent Jack Straw Writer’s Resident and MFA graduate at the University of Washington, Corbin Louis is a Seattle native making work out of a legacy of grunge and rain and illness. Each piece serves as a form of sublimation, transforming dysfunction into arrangements of self-reflection and cultural critique. Corbin’s goal as an artist is to garner awareness and support around mental illness by creating pieces that shriek for understanding, and he has been published by Best American Experimental Writing, Random Sample Review, Visible Poetry Project and others.