iTMOi

by Jennifer MacKenzie

          the mind awakens to 
          its terrors
          a friend slips over a high wall
a requiem
can only menace

                                        ‘a rupture in the mind’
my breathing in red industrial sky night
glowing ember of
the chained arachnid  ur he ur he ur he
                                     stymied by a megalomania of the
                                         floating queen

dip and swirl of the wild mind kicking the pastoral
                       into shape
‘emotion through pattern’

flame the arrival of the vertiginous body
in its marmoreal aspect,

ur he ur he ur he
Angel, ascend!

* iTMOi is a response by choreographer Akram Khan to Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Here, the Akram Khan Dance Company performs a work which moves away from narrative, and focuses on the state of mind of the composer (iTMOi stands for in The Mind of Igor)

Biography
Jennifer Mackenzie is a poet and reviewer, focusing on writing from and about the Asian region. Since the publication of Borobudur (Transit Lounge 2009) she has presented her work at a number of conferences and festivals, including the Ubud, Irrawaddy and Makassar festivals.  She has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the Marten Bequest Poetry Scholarship, and the Felix Meyer travelling scholarship from the University of Melbourne. Although mainly focused (or you could say obsessed) with Indonesia, she has also written on China, where she worked for three years, and in 2016 enjoyed a writing residency at Seoul Artspace, Yeonhui. She also works as an occasional editor for The Lontar Foundation in Jakarta. Her most recent book is Navigable Ink,  (Transit Lounge 2020).