Poetry meet art. Art, poetry.

My dear friend Angela is coming to visit me in a couple weeks!  I'm so excited to see her, it made me open a box of pictures that she had drawn for me one birthday.  More than a few years ago, she illustrated some of my poems as a gift, and I had them framed and hanging on my wall in my old apartment.  Since The Great Move of 2010, I haven't put them back up yet.  I was trying to figure out why and I wonder if it's because I don't want to commit that much to this new place.  I like the apartment okay, but it's just a place to live, not a home like the last one.  Possibly this is because I haven't put up any pictures.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to take photos of her artwork and post them here.  At least I'll feel at home on my blog.

This one accompanies a poem written about a trip to Venice I took with my family.  It's called "A Native's Dream":

 

This one is "Through the Keyhole," written at a particularly angsty time in college:

 

I realize it might be hard to read, which makes me thankful for my shoddy photographic skills.

And finally this one you might be familiar with already:

 

 

A Native's Dream

Rain ruined my first impression 

of Saint Mark's Square, flooded

enough to force people to balance, elevated

on wooden boards while we sought refuge

in the cathedral, guarded 

by bronze horses,

with my father, quite taken 

by the mosaic tile floors

slanting toward the altar.

"How long do you suppose," 

he asked, head bowed, 

"it took them to piece this place together?" 

I forgot to answer

in awe of those flashing cameras.

We struck out again into December

toward jade-colored waves that spilled over

concrete docks on the Grand Canal.  

Gondoliers stood in the wet drops like needles

and called to us, offering

special deals "for only today."

One young man in a black cap promised

in exchange for 80,000 lira

to wipe down the vinyl seats on his gondola himself.

My father agreed, making his familiar declaration

that this was "his city" because he came from

a full line of Venetians with trademark blue eyes, dark hair.

Our guide squinted his brown eyes and held out his hand.

We sat rocking in the boat under our huge umbrella,

the young man at the helm like a tired god

informing us that he was also a fireman.  Luca 

told my father how one could only be a gondolier

if he father was, and his father before him.  

As we passed under the Bridge of Sighs, 

the trail of my fingers swirled the canal like marble.

Dear Norman Rockwell, I'm sorry I compared you to that other guy.

At the Smithsonian American Art Museum there is currently an exhibition from George Lucas' and Steven Spielberg's personal collections of Norman Rockwell paintings.  The exhibit is titled "Telling Stories," and upon visiting it I finally understood the "big deal" about Rockwell's work. 

I always took his art for granted, I guess because it seemed so ubiquitous and accessible, like Thomas Kinkade's stuff which is on every card, calendar and cross stitch.  But Rockwell's paintings are certainly more than just fairy houses.  What I finally appreciated today was not only the fact that he tells a story with each one, but that he brings the audience into the story halfway through the telling of it.  Take, for example, this picture:

Just that look on the teacher's face conveys her love for each and every one of her students. She is so touched by their birthday wishes to her--even from the class clown with the eraser on his head.  Clearly her class adores her, too.

And then there's this one:

Rockwell was a master of giving you all the information you need in just one frame.  You can tell immediately by looking at this what is going on.  And he was so good at giving us images of everyday American life.  Even though these kids' clothes are old-fashioned, this scene has played out time and again in school gyms for decades.

So with my new found respect for Norman Rockwell, I will leave you with one of my favorites:

What do you think of the story?


Trouble with Math in a One-Room Country School

by Jane Kenyon 

The others bent their heads and started in.
Confused, I asked my neighbor
to explain—a sturdy, bright-cheeked girl
who brought raw milk to school from her family’s
herd of Holsteins. Ann had a blue bookmark,
and on it Christ revealed his beating heart,
holding the flesh back with His wounded hand.
Ann understood division. . . .

Miss Moran sprang from her monumental desk
and led me roughly through the class
without a word. My shame was radical
as she propelled me past the cloakroom
to the furnace closet, where only the boys
were put, only the older ones at that.
The door swung briskly shut.

The warmth, the gloom, the smell
of sweeping compound clinging to the broom
soothed me. I found a bucket, turned it
upside down, and sat, hugging my knees.
I hummed a theme from Haydn that I knew
from my piano lessons. . . .
and hardened my heart against authority.
And then I heard her steps, her fingers
on the latch. She led me, blinking
and changed, back to the class.

Take two and call me in the morning.

Last night I tried something new.  I went to a dance class that was more than a dance class.  This one had a live DJ, the steps were really easy to follow, and you do not stop moving for an hour and a half.  For all you LA people, it's called Groov3.  Check it out.  The instructor, Benjamin Allen has a really great philosophy about dance improving your life, I have to say that I agree.  When you're stressed and overwhelmed with life, spending a chunk of time learning dance moves and trying to look cool busting them out in front of a large group of people can really take your mind off things.  Plus, I think by now we can all agree that music soothes the soul (and uplifts it).

When I was in college, a couple friends and I would meet in our dorm common room to take a dance break from studying.  For some reason I can only recall us dancing to Weird Al and Space Jams.  Surely there was more to the playlist?  Napster had just come on the scene and I think we were all learning to harness it.  Anyway, try it sometime.  Instead of a smoke break, take a dance break.  Do it in traffic.  It will probably bring joy to the people around you, as they will count themselves lucky to have witnessed such an exuberant display.

The Dance

In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies, (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling about
the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Breughel's great picture, The Kermess

This poem was written by William Carlos Williams about a scene in a painting called The Kermesse: