Poetry
in your eyes
By Cheryl Johnson-Odim
For the latest video in Ursula’s series of poetry recordings, Cheryl Johnson-Odim, Rashid Johnson’s mother, performs a reading of “in your eyes” from the recently published Cheryl Johnson-Odim & Rashid Johnson: Heart-Turned-Inside-Out Poems (2023).
This new volume is an updated version of Johnson-Odim’s publication Other Women Before Me (1985). In Heart-Turned-Inside-Out Poems, her verse is accompanied by a selection of Johnson’s sketchbook drawings and an in-depth conversation between mother and son.
‘Heart-Turned-Inside-Out Poems’ features a selection of Rashid Johnson’s sketchbook drawings. Photo: Hauser & Wirth Publishers
A spread from ‘Heart-Turned-Inside-Out Poems’ featuring a conversation between the mother and son, 2023. Photo: Hauser & Wirth Publishers
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Cheryl Johnson-Odim is the author or co-author of three books, numerous chapters in books, articles in scholarly journals and book reviews. She is also a poet with a pamphlet of her poetry published in 1985 by the Poetry Factory Press and subsidized by the Illinois Arts Council. She is the proud mother of three bada** children: Chaka, Rashid and Maya.
Rashid Johnson is among an influential cadre of contemporary American artists whose work employs a wide range of media to explore themes of art history, individual and shared cultural identities, personal narratives, literature, philosophy, matenality and critical history.
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Cheryl Johnson-Odim & Rashid Johnson: Heart-Turned-Inside-Out Poems is now available from Hauser & Wirth Publishers.