Poetry
Antiphony: Shayla Lawson after Lorna Simpson
A new poem in response to Lorna Simpson’s 2013 video piece ‘Chess’
By Shayla Lawson
All stills: Lorna Simpson, Chess, three-channel HD video, 2013 © Lorna Simpson
Can you play yourself
depends on the openingdepends on the cross-fade wigdepends on the stiff white pawndepends on the zip-up stiff of a white shift cutedepends on the bent wrist mute (think).
depends on your opening. depends on your opening (mo,ve) move depends on the length of your konk depends on slick-black bloc depends on the window pane suit. Can you play me depends on the sick-back keys depends on the five-point scale depends on the bent-five chord, on its rival echo depends on if we mirror. a nation depends on how much we confederation.
depends on the en passant. depends on the thief in the rook of your neck depends on the knight’s first feel in the bishop’s close; it depends on the what that king might know. it depends on the who’s your queen. Can you really play yourself depends. how many castles you give to discredit my memory. Can you really play yourself? How long can you play yourself depends— Who wins.
Shayla Lawson is a New York-based poet and serves as writer-in-residence and chair of creative writing at Amherst College. Lawson is the author of A Speed Education in Human Being; I Think I’m Ready to See Frank Ocean and the forthcoming essay collection This Is Major. Her work has appeared in Tin House, Salon.com, The Offing, Guernica and Colorado Review, among others.
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An exhibition of Lorna Simpson's work will be on view at the Rennie Museum in Vancouver, opening in February 2020.