Photoetry projected on galvanized roofing metal, 12 x 9.5 inches

Photoetry is my own invention, a way to restrict the construction of poetry to the content of found text that I photograph while traveling. This poem is composed of words from a historic marker beside State Highway 17 in Fort Davis, Texas. Reassigning imagery from the marker's narrative, this poem offers a solemn reflection on the genocidal purpose – Indian "removal" – for which Fort Davis was established. For exhibition, I projected the poem onto a discarded galvanized roof panel from Old Main, Texas State University's founding structure, built in 1902. From its hilltop perch, Old Main looks down on Spring Lake, a university-owned archaeological site believed by several indigenous groups to be the Sacred Springs where The People entered the terrestrial world from the underworld.