Julie Ann Otis is Somerville’s Artistic Fellow of Interdisciplinary Arts. She composes and performs poetry on the fly and occasionally in mid-air. Julie Ann recently performed at the ICA Boston and at Aeronaut Brewery (Somerville), where she composed and projected poetry in real-time alongside an animation artist and an electronic music artist. She created an environmental poetry installation, “Answering Mara,” at The Art Farm (Nebraska) and “Incubus,” performance poetry choreographed with aerial dance in rope and harness. Her interactive poetry installation, “Free Verse,” combined vintage typewriters, public exchange of free writing, and live-time composition. Her performance installation of “The Complaint (& Catharsis) Department,” a re-imagining of the R.M.V., offered affirmation/consolation for attendees of Somerville’s Pity Party. Accolades include Opus Affair Artist of the Year in 2014 and exhibitions at Boston City Hall. Her most recent chapbook, Elastic Communion, is available at www.julieannotis.com.

Place in the Choir

Julie Ann Otis

It’s just another day in Missouri
It’s just another day in New York
It’s just another day in Arkansas
Alabama
Mississippi
in my hometown

Just another day of heartbreak
the color drains from our faces
as we receive the news of no news
the news of nothing new
the news of no action, no justice, no voice
the news of no air escaping
from the throat of this choked up judicial pipeline

Today my grandmother
speaking thru pain as she presses
the third act of her life into an encore
tells me the story of leaving her Methodist church
Nebraska 1963

crossing her name off the register
leaving a house divided
abandoning the segregated soul
called to worship with all God’s children

Unspoken to me is her question
of the epilogue that will follow
will I sit at home instead of raising my voice
will I watch on TV or take to the street

will I hashtag it on Twitter from the corner office
spread the paperless indictment

or plant my feet where they’re needed most

— Julie Ann Otis

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