In these hybrid pieces, I was wanting to open the blocked channels in myself. I wanted to stir awake different parts of myself and explore what was deeply alive and dwelling under the surface of my conscious thoughts.

The work of Stephanie Adams-Santos spans poetry, prose, and screenwriting. Often grappling with themes of strangeness and belonging, their work reflects a fascination with the weird, numinous, and primal forces that shape inner life. They are the author of several full length poetry collections and chapbooks, including Dream of Xibalba (2023), selected by Jericho Brown as winner of the 2021 Orison Poetry Prize, and Swarm Queen’s Crown (2016), finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. Stephanie served as Staff Writer and Story Editor on the television anthology horror series Two Sentence Horror Stories (Netflix), and was winner of a 2022 Gold Telly Award in TV Writing. They have received grants and fellowships from Sundance, Film Independent, Vermont Studio Center, Regional Arts and Culture Council, and Oregon Arts Commission. In addition to their literary work, Stephanie is illustrating an original Major Arcana tarot deck called Tarot de La Selva.

from A MOUTH HOLDS MANY THINGS:
Illustrated Poems

A copper eye floats on the water
at high noon

A thorn from the rose

The caterpillar’s kiss

An emptiness

Light from all angles

Memory strides backwards

A lost child

A maggot’s longing

Sadness of the plantain leaf

A narrow, blazing sword

A shadow beneath a shadow

[all that dwells]

All that dwells
in a single thought

such shapes
behind the eye —

a geometry from beyond

Artist Reflection

As one who spends a lot of time “upstairs”—moving language around in my head, constantly navigating a blitz of anxious thoughts, dread, and looming errands—I often find myself stuck against the ceiling of myself. When I’m like this, there’s a feeling of soul-sickness, and with that, a freezing up of my creative well. So again and again the task is to drop down from my head and into the lower body, into the gut, the hands and feet, into blood and earth and breath. For me, this speaks to a constant, laborious inner work of rooting myself in the material substrate of my corporeal existence.

In these hybrid pieces, I was wanting to open the blocked channels in myself. I wanted to stir awake different parts of myself and explore what was deeply alive and dwelling under the surface of my conscious thoughts. I intentionally took very different visual approaches (in respect to the style of artwork, the background coloring, the layout of the text) to stir fresh fragments to the surface. These are unconscious writings/drawings, each composed at night, in bed, just before sleep. I was stirred by Rilke’s words: “Go now and do the/ heart-work on the images/ imprisoned within you.” I think of these as dreams of the body. They are not strictly poems or illustrations; they are both and neither. More than anything, they are explorations—and excavations.

Marion Woodman said that “in finding our own story, we assemble all the parts of ourselves. Whatever kind of mess we have made of it, we can somehow see the totality of who we are and recognize how our blunderings are related.” For me, working across genres and mediums and creating hybrid works that serve their own mysterious purposes is a vital part of my spirit’s unfolding. Hybridity is for me a way to honor and enact the true dimensions and facets and restless curiosity of the life-force(s) within me. It’s a way of asserting my freedom and truth.