09.20-21.16 : ELESE DANIEL : CINCINNATI, OH

“Things in bed with me: keys, yesterday’s clothes, laptop, 16x12 piece of wood, a small plate w/a fork, two books, two business cards (not mine), a shoe box w/ never worn clipless D2R bike shoes, a hammock….”

my dear friend lucy durepos(another rad lady whose thoughts and handwritten days should be read here) introduced me to elese during my first trip to the hidden secret that is cincinnati. though our actual hangtime was brief, lucy spoke so highly and whistfully of this poetic, raw beauty whose connections to "the goofy movie" stem deep, that i felt like i knew her for a while. however, i though it only appropriate that lucy write the introduction for her pages, so without further ado, here are her words about her babe of a friend:

elese daniel is a foxy amoeba that brings life to every space she occupies. she lives and feels in cincinnati- an all too apropos back drop for the bumpy, lush beauty that is her personhood. by day she works as a community liaison for a politician. she takes her job seriously - though of all the potential subjects to pick her brain about as you sit together on roof tops drinking miller high lifes listening to blood orange- politics would not be the first thing to come to mind.

elese loves bikes. she is super active in her hardcourt bicycle polo club and will travel all over the country with her teammates out of a genuine love for the game, meeting new people, as well as any opportunity to be covered in sweat, dirt and smiles.

elese writes poems, prose and foggy, heartfelt monday morning texts. she frequently reads and performs her words for all sorts of events across the city (they can even be found tattooed on bodies and buildings, alongside the thoughts and feels of fellow celebrated local poets featured in Artwork’s CincyInk poem…) elese re-started the city’s Poet Laureate program for the first time in the 21st century. for 3 years she has volunteered with wordplay cincy, a 501c3 nonprofit that empowers cincy youth through free innovative learning programs, with an emphasis on creative writing and literacy. she has been invited to be their writer-in-residence for the 2016/17 school year. since accepting this position, she has been energetically brainstorming unique ways to facilitate conversation with the teens on their views of culture, identity, and current events (including the curious, malleable use of memes as a device for honest self-expression) with the ultimate goal of instilling confidence in them… confidence in their individual perspectives and voices. confidence to feel, to share, to write, to perform.

in her poems, in her circular movements as she dances with friends, in her tired yet engaged living room conversations, in the quiet, bespectacled moments in her office responding to emails, in her sexy rambunctious collisions of bicycle cluster fucked chaos-  elese drips warm, textured glimpses of sensory experience with occasional doses of playful eroticism and tender insight on the stuff that stings and tugs, like a bittersweet squeeze of fresh lisbon lemon.