Poetry. Belle Gironda's poems mediate between domestic and public space, using the discourse of architecture and dramas of the dispossessed. She structures each poem anew to test the tensile strength of poetic tropes. In one, you hang by a finger on Bishop's Terrace in Yosemite; in the next, you circle The Mother of Orchards (Umm Al-Basatin) in Baghdad. Gironda navigates borders, recording language's obligations to material conditions. The book's orgasms are triggered by familiar ghosts: Frank Lloyd Wright, Michel Foucault, Ruskin and Byron. But those who haunt us are lesser known folks: Shameeka Johnson-Dixon, Cat Gironda, Robert Harbison or Farley Granger. The book moves us from "Plans" to "Structures" to "Dwellers"; we end in "Occupation." Through out the journey, "pure light" marks world's edges in "quick cuts like breaking glass-> rational space." We appreciate the risks Gironda takes in cultivating empathy.

Author City: Cairo EGY

Belle Gironda's poems have appeared recently in CRAYON, Confrontation, and Crit Journal. She is the author of two chapbooks: Start Here from St. Andrews Press and Volume 1 Number 4 with the artist Sheila Goloborotko in the High Watermark Salo[o]n Series, from Stockport Flats. She worked as an art critic for several years before attending graduate school and was among the editors who transformed The Little Magazine from a print to an electronic journal, one of the first of its kind. Gironda sometimes plays with video and performance, and currently teaches writing in Cairo, Egypt. As BUILDING CODES when to press, she enjoyed a month's residency at Takt Kunstprojektraum in Berlin, Germany.

Reviews and Other Links
http://cairocult.wordpress.com/
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