ABSTRACT
Critics, academics, curators and photographers are not the only people with an
interest in photography, and the poems that follow show an equally valid way
of reacting to issues raised by photography.
Felix Morisseau-Leroy
KODAK
Tourist, don’t take my picture
Don’t take my picture, tourist
I’m too ugly
Too dirty
Too meager and too thin
Don’t take my picture, white
Mr. Eastman wouldn’t approve
I’m too ugly, too thin
And your Kodak will break
I’m too dirty and too black
Your Kodak will burst
Don’t take my portrait, tourist
Let me be, white
Don’t photograph my donkey
Donkeys here carry too much
Donkeys here are too little
Donkeys here don’t eat
Tourist, don’t shoot my house
My house is a house of hay
Don’t take a picture of my poor house
My house is a house of clay
Go shoot the National Palace
Shoot Bicentennial Avenue
But don’t take a picture of my garden
I have no plow or car or tractor
Don’t take a picture of my tree
Tourist, I’m barefoot
And my clothes are all torn
Isn’t this what you see?
