Residential Neighborhood
Manteca, California
green veer touches
gray pavement touches
black asphalt touches
saffron turban touches
black hoodie touches
grey jeans touches
white patka touches
cream kurta touches
brown foot touches
gray pavement touches
black asphalt touches
grey jeans touches
saffron turban touches
black asphalt touches
cream kurta touches
black hoodie touches
green veer touches
brown foot touches
black asphalt
but
spit
&
spit
&
spit cannot touch
the yards of voile
split
or strung between shades
of bodies
created equal
under god
On August 6, 2018, Sahib Singh Natt, 71, was taking a stroll on a sidewalk near his home in Manteca, California when he was kicked to the asphalt by two young men who then proceeded to repeatedly kick him & spit on him. One of the assailants was identified as the son of Union City’s Chief of Police.
Divya Victor is the author of KITH (Fence Books/ Book Thug), a book of verse, prose memoir, lyric essay and visual objects; NATURAL SUBJECTS (Trembling Pillow, Winner of the Bob Kaufman Award), UNSUB (Insert Blanc), and THINGS TO DO WITH YOUR MOUTH (Les Figues). Her chapbooks include Semblance and Hellocasts by Charles Reznikoff by Divya Victor by Vanessa Place. Her criticism and commentary have appeared in Journal of Commonwealth & Postcolonial Studies, Jacket2, and The Poetry Foundation’s Harriet. Her work has been collected in numerous venues, including, more recently, the New Museum’s The Animated Reader, Crux: Journal of Conceptual Writing, The Best American Experimental Writing, and boundary2. Her poetry has been translated into French and Czech. She has been a Mark Diamond Research Fellow at the U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum, a Riverrun Fellow at the Archive for New Poetry at University of California San Diego, and a Writer in Residence at the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit (L.A.C.E.). Her work has been performed and installed at Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) Los Angeles, The National Gallery of Singapore, the Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibit (L.A.C.E.) and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). She is Assistant Professor of Poetry and Writing at Michigan State University and Editor at Jacket2. She is currently at work on a project commissioned by the Press at Colorado College.