Poem-a-Day - "Artist Statement" by Tarik Dobbs

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July 30, 2024 
 

Artist Statement

Tarik Dobbs

The lowercase “I” without end 
punctuation. The artist comes from 
a company town. The artist swam 
in its polluted river. This will be good. 
The blank page is a canvas. Be more 
specific. The corporate histories 
that could be written here, unwind. 
The states of state are mined and under 
-mined. Don’t escape from here. 
The artist’s identity politics start 
to thin out. There is no discussing 
the artist’s philosophies—2D collage, 
mixed media aesthetics. Each page 
is a thirst trap hinged on diaspora. 
An exoticized mural covering the wall 
of a hyphen-American restaurant. 
Each reference is a wandering. 

Copyright © 2024 by Tarik Dobbs. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 30, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“This is a poem about an uncertain self during a coming of age, about understanding one’s influences, and also about attending art school. And if you know, you know.”
—Tarik Dobbs

Tarik Dobbs

Tarik Dobbs is an Arab American, disabled, queer poet. They are the author of Dearbornistan (Haymarket Books, 2026) and Nazar Boy (Haymarket Books, 2024). A 2022 Poetry Foundation Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellow, Dobbs is an assistant professor of English at Southwest Minnesota State University. They live on unceded Mdewakanton Dakota and Ojibwe lands in Minnesota.

Nazar Boy

Nazar Boy
(Haymarket Books, 2024)

“Beautiful Throat” by Bruce Smith
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“Theorem of Sorts” by Mónica de la Torre
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Thanks to torrin a. greathouse, author of DEED (Wesleyan University Press, 2024), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about greathouse’s curatorial approach and find out more about our Guest Editors for the year.
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