Francine Heather Conley is a poet, performer, and director.
She has written & directed four successful one-woman shows, including
Cocu Couple (1991),Whole People (1995), Truth or
Dare! (1998) all at Bravehearts theatre, The Purse Project (2000),
for which she received Critic's Choice for "best of 2000", and most
recently, Windows (2002), both at the Madison Art Center.
She also directed Samuel Beckett's Endgame at
Bravehearts theatre, for which she received Critic's Choice (1998) and
is appearing in a Thèâtre de la Chandelle Verte production
of Sartre's Huis Clos as Inès. She holds a PhD in French
from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she also performed in
and directed numerous French and Francophone University theatre productions.
Her chapbook, How Dumb the Stars (2001, Parallel Press), can be
ordered from parallelpress.library.wisc.edu/conley.html
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Abdulla said
I think the world is soulless
as if uprooted by a storm
and the pause that followed made us look up
at the sun tilting its hat down and take in
the view of college kids walking by. Abdulla is
an immigrant; after years of living here he just bought
his first T.V. Like me, he doesn't know how
to watch it. He stays up late for reality
and dating shows in which acts of infidelity come easy
as death. Hidden cameras reveal all, apologize
for nothing, and the hosts, in voices deeply
invested in the idea of sincerity say they are really sorry
as someone weeps and yells at someone else who in turn
denies everything. Abdulla asks why do these people lie
and say they are not lying? This is why the world’s soul
is vanishing, he insists, and after I suggest he turn the T.V. off
he jokes, but that would not solve the problem of souls.
We stop talking
and listen to passing conversations filled
with like, and like, and I was like, so like. Somehow
the likeness between likes makes me think this
is where souls are, stuttering on the beginning of a simile
yet failing to compare. Abdulla mocks, Shall I compare thee,
like, to a Summer’s day? I say, listen, instead
of worrying you should shelve used books for work
like I do, from A to Z. Think of all the books filled
with the sole words of a writer’s hand and the fate
of falling behind warped shelves and then
forgotten, until the day a fussy hand told to clean up
the dust reaches back and finds a few books beat up, lost
souls,
like the night I was stuck sweeping behind the S’s
and Anne Sexton's Life in Letters fell
on my foot opened
to
one of her last in which she writes to her daughter
that life is hard and lonely but
she will never leave her
despite her leaving She
will always be there near, near, nearly, as
if inside each comma she continues to search
and dangle, Anne Sexton, unfinished,
and for a moment, Anne
says,
a
soul is a small light: it lights up nothing—
Look
into the light with what I see—
she flies straight up and carries me
Her personal site, Francine
Conley , will keep you informed about upcoming works now that
she has taken a position in Minnesota.