in the desert
are tiny voices
the hunters of
nocturnal moments
It’s been a while since my last post – so I hope everyone is well and staying safe and sane during the lockdown. I will be gradually retooling this site to reflect where my life and art practice is at right now, so bear with me! (more…)
I was immediately impressed by Ms. Jana White’s poem I dream of being a weed, posted way back in February. I’ve read other poems about weeds, both literal and metaphorical, but her take on these hardy little plants is both beautiful and unique. She also created a lovely drawing to accompany her poem (a poet after my own heart!), so I decided to let this one sit for a while and incubate in my imagination. I wanted my illustration to be different and complementary to hers. A photograph of a grasshopper, taken by me on a recent run, became the inspiration to return to this poem and create a photo collage. Ms. White’s blog, Poetry of Light, is wonderful and I encourage a visit over there to experience some of her poetry. To hop directly to the full text and original illustration of I dream of being a weed, click here. Photo collage by me. Have a great Wednesday!
A Saturday morning spent playing around with photo collages and a cheeky Edna St. Vincent Millay epigram is time well spent, I say!
Have a wonderful weekend, enjoy the collage, and perhaps be inspired by these three links:
1) Ms. Chiara Ricci-Tam, my friend and collaborator in science as well as art, has started her own WordPress Blog! I have been like a broken record over the last two years telling her that the folks on WP are some of the best there are, and that I have made new friends and connected with amazing artists, authors, and poets here. Now she’s here too – and so, if you don’t mind, click on over to her brand new site Chiaroscurale and say hello!
2) Wave Erasure Books – a vibrant conversation on Twitter, started by Beat Company, reminded me of this awesome site and the one below. You (or the program if you click “random poem”) can erase words from classic texts to create something entirely new. You can also submit your erasure creations to their website to be added to the online collection.
3) Howl your work – this program will take any line you provide and “Howl with it.” I don’t think there is any other way to explain other than to show the results. I put today’s epigram into the algorithm, and this is what popped out:
safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!
America upon safe roof street after we’re Passaic, caresses
rocking Long suicide, singing Spaniard sanity radio rose fate were
returning hands to twelve gas a soul trucks governments! Bridge a not
demonic Chinatown the together of up Moloch who entered my soul early!
Moloch in whom Light streaming out of the actual pingpong of the moon
& their hands & a hung jury, and harlequin speech of suicide,
demanding instantaneous
Behold the power of random chance, computer algorithms, and Howl by Alan Ginsberg!
Robert Hayden probably knew a thing or two about cold winter mornings, having grown up in Detroit in the early part of last century. He published his first poetry book at 27 and later went on to become the first African-American appointed as Poet Laureate of the United States. You can read the full text of the poem here. Photograph (of Aristide Maillol’s statue Mountain), lettering, and composition by me. Have a good week!
It is a great pleasure to be able to revisit this particular short poem and update my post about it. When I presented this poem back in March of this year (you can click here to travel back in time to it), I mentioned that the poet herself was a bit of a mystery. Despite the inclusion of this poem in multiple anthologies and the wide debate about the usage of metaphor in poetry it provokes, the only information about Ms. Treasone I could find was a two-line obituary for a woman of the same name that did not mention poetry. But not long ago her daughter, Ellen, contacted me and let me know that it was her mother’s obituary and that I made the correct identification. I asked if I could share her note with you all, and she agreed.
She wrote, “I told her how proud I was of her for writing such a poem that would make people think, although it was very short, she told me it just meant; life is hard & a struggle and if you can figure out a way to cope and remember your mistakes, you can have a chance at happiness in your heart.”
A lovely sentiment – and I couldn’t agree more. I redesigned my illustration to reflect a mandala. Photo collage and composition by me, poem by Ms. Grace Marie Treasone (1925-2011), a poet and resident of Sarasota, Florida.
The yawning of this awning
In the moonlight
Was his problem of the night…
It is my pleasure to present today’s illustrated excerpt: the poem is “Fixer of Midnight” by Reuel Denney (1913-1995), illustrated by Mr. John Sapiro. Mr. Sapiro has a fabulous blog where he mixes up music, art, photography, and words into eclectic – often animated – and always interesting digital assemblages. I was thrilled when he agreed to make one in response to a poem for Illustrated Poetry!
Despite finding acclaim as a scholar of American culture and sociology, Mr. Denney considered himself first and foremost a poet. Read the entire poem here – it is a breathless tale about a very ordinary problem that takes on mythical proportions. Enjoy!
Po Chü-i (also known as Bai Juyi, depending on the system of translating Chinese to English) was a mid-level government official who survived the turbulent politics of his day and became known for writing poems about his career and daily life. He doesn’t mince words in this short poem, “The Red Cockatoo” (Annam was a province in southern China in Po Chü-i’s day). Thanks to the translator Arthur Waley (1889 – 1966), Po Chü-i’s work has been accessible to western audiences for nearly 100 years now. Photo collage and composition by me. Have a great weekend!
Today’s quatrain is from another mysterious poet – despite this poem’s inclusion in a number of anthologies and websites, I could find next to nothing about the author. I did find an obituary for a Grace Treasone whose life would have encompassed the correct time frame (the poem is listed as having been written around 1963); it did not mention poetry, but the name is unusual enough that I have included those dates here. Another thing I discovered about this poem is that it spends a fair bit of time on “worst of” poetry lists, both online and in books (it does get the occasional vote of confidence, though). When choosing a poem to illustrate, I have never considered such rankings – I look for poems that pair with images and ideas in my imagination and then I seek to execute what I have in mind. The research comes afterward when writing the post. I am curious what folks think of it. I will say that, as someone who has suffered from dental problems all of my life, I did sympathize with the metaphor! Photo collage (the lower one is of a reliquary from the Metropolitan Museum of Art) and composition by me.
Today’s excerpt is from the jazz poem “In Memoriam John Coltrane” by Mr. Michael Stillman (b. 1940) – read the whole poem here (about halfway down the page) and, if you can, read it out loud. It has an amazing and evocative rhythm. Mr. Stephen Cramer points out in the post that this poem is actually three haiku! The photo collage behind it is of Mathias Goeritz’s Mensaje: Decoración Mural, 1960. Goertiz would rhythmically pound nails through sheet metal creating a pattern with pattern and texture. I tried in vain to find a video clip of Goertiz, who died in 1990, in the act of creating one of these pieces. But you don’t need a video clip to hear the beat of the nails driving through the metal. Photo collage and composition by me.
Revisiting the very first epigram I ever put up on the site – “Image” by T.E. Hulme (1883-1917). Photographs by me, taken from the viewing gallery of The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Have a wonderful holiday weekend!
Illustrated Poetry 