by Paul Maziar
Originally published March 2020
Author’s Note:
I’ve been enchanted by Cynthia Lahti’s work since the moment I first saw it—thanks to my friend, the poet James Yeary. I’ve awaited the occasion to celebrate the imagination, surprise, strangeness and humor in her art, through writing about it, and was thrilled when Stephanie Snyder suggested that I respond to Lahti’s work with poetry, for the Oregon Visual Arts Ecology Project. This book is a record of a few weeks of pure magic that occurred in January and February, 2019. Much love and endless gratitude to Stephanie for allowing this total dream of a book to be a thing. This poem was sparked by and is also dedicated to the swoonworthy Cait McDavid.