A few views of the Lake District, where color and stillness speak Ask Me Sometime when the river runs ice, ask me mistakes I have made. Ask me whether what I have done is my life. Others have come in their slow way into my thought, and some have tried to help or to hurt […]
Poetry
Time Again in Which to Make the Imagined Human Paradise: Jorie Graham
My interest is ongoing in the poetic mastery of Jorie Graham. Thanks to several readers, especially my friend Pam McGrath, who have responded to many of the issues raised about her work in the Anders essay that I posted last week. (See below for that three-part posting.) In the spirit of of giving her more […]
James Galvin et al, Part 3
A third posting from Jack Anders’ essay…this section explores Galvin’s poetics in more detail. I particularly like Anders’ line—“poetry always tries to show raw flux in frozen form”: In any event, in X, all revolves around the elemental subject matter which is the end of the marriage. Each poem represents an effort to embrace the […]
Jorie Graham, James Galvin et al, Part 2
This is a continuation of the essay by Jack Anders as posted below. In this section he contrasts the metaphysical and mystical qualities of Graham’s exquisite poem San Sepolcro with one of her more recent works. The distinctions he identifies ring true for me. Anders then moves his focus more specifically to poems written by […]
Jack Anders on Jorie Graham et al, Part 1
I am in awe of Jorie Graham’s gifts as a poet. But although I have spent time powering through her later poems, they haven’t captured me with the same breathless wonder that her earlier work evokes. As an artist, I feel uncomfortable when this happens. It’s the art maker’s creed–we want everyone to respond most […]
Getting to Into
My work has a close relationship to landscape, but it is not a direct one. People often talk about a certain place and say something like, “It is so beautiful, you really can’t capture it in a photograph.” What is it that can’t be captured by a representational process like photography? What exists beyond the […]
Mast Sleeping
The Unbeliever He sleeps on the top of a mast. – Bunyan He sleeps on the top of a mast with his eyes fast closed. The sails fall away below him like the sheets of his bed, leaving out in the air of the night the sleeper’s head. Asleep he was transported there, asleep he […]
The Hiding Places
The intensity of the last week and the death of two friends in such a short period of time have been a strong wind sailing me straight into a setting sun. I haven’t been to my studio for over a week. In spite of deadlines for upcoming shows I am allowing my hands to lie […]
Laps
The following poem was written by Ann Rae Jonas, a close friend of Morris Arrari. She wrote it for him during the period when he was struggling with his illness. Exercise You make no art, you say, because you have nothing to say. When eye and hand in tandem sketched draped cloth, a slender arm, […]
Now That I Have Your Heart by Heart
Song For The Last Act Now that I have your face by heart, I look Less at its features than its darkening frame Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame, Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook. Beyond, a garden, There, in insolent ease The lead and marble figures watch the show Of […]