JoAnna Scandiffio
Issue 4.3
Fall 2024
Reflection
The term "outsider art" bothers me. This term is often used to classify art that is not mainstream. Who determines what is in or what is out? I love artists who live on the edge, the fringe, who use non-traditional materials—old buttons, discarded eyeglasses, stuff most people throw away, and artists who make us see the world upside down or slantwise. The processes of these so-called outsider artists influence my work. I am a scavenger poet, rummaging through art, science, and everyday stuff that happens. I salvage old love letters, leftover dreams, rusty pots, and pans to make poems with missing parts. My poems are night passengers, zookeepers, bullets. Give me a wishbone. I will set the house on fire.
Elizabeth Bishop: No Longer Still
​Her Apples
Newtonic
fall into rivers
revert to
seeds
nymphs
fish scales
find their way
where they glow
like rhinestones
vertiginous
change partners spin out of genesis
a version of God giddy
quick to turn
absence green
JoAnna Scandiffio is a gemologist living in San Francisco. Her poems are like bird nests, made with fragments randomly connected to hold the moment. She is like the old medieval monks who copied out verses in colored inks so the world could sing forever. Her work has appeared in Calyx, The Poeming Pigeon, Poets 11, Sugared Water, The MacGuffin, Italian Americana, The RavensPerch, The Ekphrastic Review and other journals.
JoAnna's Book Recommendations
​C D Wright Deepstep Come Shining
Naomi Shihab Nye Words Under the Words
Ocean Vuong On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
anything by Anne Carson and Emily Dickinson.