Red Painted Woman – Maiah A Merino
Maiah A Merino’s project for the 2026 Jack Straw Writers Program is a collection of poems that, in her own words “explores systemic contracts and agreements we have with those in our families as well as other societal systems.” In her conversation with curator Claudia Castro Luna, they talk about how her work as a therapist informs her writing, how the natural world and the life of women are connected, and how the idea of a hivemind shows up in her writing. “A lot of people talk about Mother Earth. And so, if we have that frame and that theme and we look at how women are treated in the world, and just the misogyny that is just continuous, there’s just a lot of connections there. Just the ways that women’s bodies are broken down because of the environment and the ways that people think and hold them. And hold motherhood. It’s just not where I think it needs to be.”
Music by Star Gondola, produced through the Jack Straw Artist Support Program.
