Small Hard Moments

Artist Statement

This mixed media collage-poem is from a series called "Threadbare, We Stars" which explores poverty through the lens of magic, imagination, and childlike awe. As a child growing up in poverty in Ronald Reagan's brutal 1980's, I found my only anchor to be a kind of rich inner fantasy life, as do most children coming of age in harrowing circumstances. It is my hope that these pieces honor the inner riches we each carry inside us, despite the soul-crushing brutalities of poverty.

James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger, (Indolent Books, 2018), All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021), and the forthcoming Motel Prayers (Alien Buddha, 2022). They are the founding editor of the online, literary arts journal and intentional community Anti-Heroin Chic. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Thrush Poetry Journal, Corporeal, The Madrigal, The Lumiere Review, Rust + Moth, Selcouth Station, Moss Puppy, Apricity, and Wrong Doing Mag. They live in upstate New York.