Daniel Barnum
Tiding

in the hands of branches—the copse of ash—
magpies again. what do I get waiting
on another country’s bird calls? as separate

from yet dependent on society
and signs as they are every instinct. catch
the burden of their blue iridescence

and white stripes. I have worn my own
vanity like wings, with equal knack
for self-concept as disappearing

into any evening. let’s look through land-
scape's colorlessness again toward our city
of quartz. we know the single chord

to sound against an hour's urgency.
we keep up the customs of our species.

Daniel Barnum is a writer and translator based in Philadelphia. He is a former fellow at the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets, and has served as editorial assistant at West Branch. His work appears soon or most recently in The Adirondack Review, Ninth Letter, Voicemail Poems, The Maynard, and The Matador Review.

Initially for artist Paolo Di Rosa, approaching art felt like a personal journey, a relationship born from a need for internal balance during his engineering studies.

But after receiving numerous accolades for his artwork both within Italy and from abroad, he decided to pursue his passion for art and dedicate himself to becoming a professional artist. Since then he has devoted his career to mastering the visual arts and now specialises in painting.

In his latest artistic quest, the central theme running throughout his work is the human figure immersed in a non-place, externalising dreamlike and introspective projections; setting the stage for an intimate dialogue between feeling and reality.