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Mari Esabel Valverde
Mari Esabel Valverde
Our Phoenix
A lamentation, an outcry, and a rousing to a movement for equality.
for SATB chorus, piano, and trumpet (part included with download).
“Our Phoenix” calls attention to the epidemic of murder of transgender Americans. From disconnected melodic lines to resounding harmonies interwoven with trumpet declamations, this work is a lamentation, an outcry, and a rousing to a movement for equality. We must demand more from ourselves for ourselves, be like the phoenix, and rise.
Composer’s Notes
In a time when trans people are more visible than ever, we know that, just since the start of 2015, over 20 transgender Americans have been reported murdered at the hands of impassioned cowards. We also know that approximately 40% of trans Americans are documented to have attempted suicide. There are many obstacles for our LGBTQ family, and while it is not constructive to compare them by their gravities, we must acknowledge the egregious undervaluing of our trans population.
“Our Phoenix” is ours because we, the people, the queer population and our allies, all of us share this life-struggle. When one stripe of our rainbow is denied the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, when we are targeted and harassed, assaulted, or pushed beyond the edge of mortality, the impact comes back for everyone. We only have ourselves to hold accountable, and our response will set the tone for the generations who survive us.
My inspiration for this composition were the words “clay,” “phoenix,” “burning,” “bright,” “beyond survival,” “loving,” and “victory.” The mention of “clay” is a metaphor for humus, the stuff from which our spiritual humanity was formed; “burning” suggests the hazardous process of forging us into something that will endure; and the “phoenix” is an allusion to the incandescent bird that is reborn rising from ashes to persist forever.
From disconnected melodic lines to resounding harmonies interwoven with trumpet declamations, this work is a lamentation, an outcry, and a rousing to a movement for equality. We must demand more from ourselves for ourselves and for those who follow us. Let us, then, be like the phoenix and rise.
-Mari Esabel Valverde
Text
My Dear Beautiful People,
Each time you are broken,
I break, I break,
I break a little more
then un-break,
I am piecing myself back together
with the care of a potter’s hands
I clay phoenix
I feel the heat
of our resurrections burning
to glaze our skin into glow
my fire and my kiln
are these words, this space
the intimate threads
of our connection
…
I envision us going on
to eclipse, building, bigger, bigger, bigger
more luminous
So bright
My beautiful people
our breaking is our making
…
[Let] us dream towards
what we want
beyond survival
Let us dream towards loving
ourselves
over and over again
My beautiful people
I can taste our honeyed victory
My beautiful people
our dangerous sweetness
is our rebellion
-Amir Rabiyah
Excerpts from “Our Dangerous Sweetness” Copyright © 2012. Used with Permission of the Author.
About the poet:
Amir Rabiyah is a queer, trans, mixed race, disabled poet, educator, and librarian currently living in Central Pennsylvania. They are the author of Prayers for My 17th Chromosome, published by Sibling Rivalry Press in November 2017, and co-editor of Writing the Walls Down: A Convergence of LGBTQ Voices, published by Trans-Genre Press in October 2015. Amir writes about living with chronic pain and illness, war, trauma, spirituality, healing, redemption — and speaks on silenced places. Their other works have been published in Mizna, 580 Split, Flicker and Spark: A Contemporary Queer Anthology of Spoken Word and Poetry, Enizagam, Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, The Asian American Literary Review, Kweli Journal, Sukoon, Collective Brightness: LGBTIQ Poets on Faith, Religion and Spirituality and more. Amir is a three-time VONA (Voices of our Nations) fellow. They were a finalist in the 2008 Joy Harjo Poetry contest, the 2012 Enizagam poetry contest, and the Atlanta Review’s 2013 poetry contest.
Amir has travelled extensively all over the United States leading workshops and sharing their stories and poems. In 2009, Amir had the privilege of being an STP with June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley where they supported emerging poets develop their craft and deepen their voice. Amir has participated in residencies at the Kimmel Nelson Harding Center in Nebraska, the Guapamacátaro Center for Art and Ecology in Michoacán, Mexico, and more. For more information or to contact Amir, visit www.AmirRabiyah.com.
$2.25 per licensed PDF
Music from Mari Esabel Valverde
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Oracle of Spring
Difficulty: 4Duration: less than 3 min.
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