Spotlight: Jesse Mockrin

APRIL 9-MAY 17, 2025

The Spotlight series includes a new or never-before-exhibited artwork paired with a commissioned piece of writing, creating focused and thoughtful conversations between the visual arts and authors, critics, poets, scholars, and beyond. In this iteration, the Spotlight features Jesse Mockrin’s A story told this many times becomes the forest, 2025. The title of the work comes from the poem Daphne pursued by Apollo by Sophia Stid (2020). A text by author Carmen Maria Machado accompanies the presentation.

It Seemed to Him
By Carmen Maria Machado

I.                Fires too subtle for my thought.

Here she is, as she always is, Daphne—daughter, virgin, first beloved—stumbling into the path of Phoebus. Phoebus, proud, Phoebus, great. Phoebus, who wronged Cupid (vengeful Cupid, undaunted Cupid, impish Cupid). Cupid, with two arrows:

dull, lead, repelling love                                                                                                                                     sharp, gold, exciting love

 It could have been otherwise. It could have been daughter and virgin and first beloved incandescent with want. Daphne as we see her, spreading for heaven. Leaping from peak to peak for a taste of what thrilled her—the pierce of radiance. The touch of the god of poetry of dance the touch of the god of glorious light.

 But no. Lead to Daphne, lovely. Gold to the god of contempt.

II.               The joys of chase.

Daphne did not need a reason but Cupid gave her one. She longs to stay a virgin (one who denies the joys of love). She begs her father to allow her modesty. Dearest father, she says, let me live. (So much to do, so much to do. A list as long as a tree is tall, and it grows by the hour.) Like so many daughters, she would rather live than love. Like so many fathers, he promises what he cannot give. Because her beauty prevails against her will. (What do we call it, what do we call it?)

And as the stubble of the field flares (tsk tsk, it happens) and the stacked wheat is consumed by flames (every day, it seems), so the bosom of Phoebus is consumed. (He is consumed but he still has notes. Her hair would be perfect if properly arranged.) (He didn’t need the arrow but it’s how the story will go.)

The god of light calls to the living virgin Daphne. He tells her to calm down. Yes, the lamb leaps from the raging wolf. Sure, from the lion runs the timid faun. Of course, the prey flees from their natural enemy.

But not now. Not this time. Daphne, beloved, why do you run?

III.             She seemed most lovely.

Her flight made her beautiful. Zephyrs stirred her garments. The wind caressed her hair. He is greyhound. He is mad with love. He rushes. She flees. He gains. He follows and permits her no rest. Spent, she cries out to her father (useless) and her mother (better). She offers up her body and her beauty. No prison worse than his desire. Anything to be free. (Fathers have a way of misunderstanding what mothers do not.)

We are close to her now. (She lets us wants us to see to know.) Bark crawls down her arms her torso her thighs like gauntlets like armor like silk. (She suffers in triplicate.) Branches sprout from her fingers. (She twists and writhes and spirals.) She sees him, she sees him. She looks at us. Her hair becomes as leaves.

 (So literal, father. So correct and yet so perfectly utterly wrong.)

Rooted, she takes her first and final breath.

IV.             It seemed to him.

Any man can love a tree. (She is still slender has knots and clefts and lost her imperious mouth.) His hand lingers on her trunkchest. (How many times in her life? Too many to number.) He clings to her brancharms like twine. (Every day, at least.) Her bosombark throbs. (With what depends on the teller.) He puts his mouth to the wood of her. (Does she shrink from every kiss, or is it the breeze that stirs her?)

Phoebus always did love a monologue. He always adored having the last word.