Opening scene from “Romeo and Juliet,” Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Boston MA What is the point of making beautiful things, or of cherishing the beauty of the past, when ugliness runs rampant? Those who work in the realm of the arts have been asking themselves that question in recent weeks. The election of Donald Trump, and […]
Wallace Stevens
Incipient Cosmos
Monnara, from a new series July Mountain We live in a constellation Of patches and of pitches, Not in a single world, In things said well in music, On the piano and in speech, As in the page of poetry- Thinkers without final thoughts In an always incipient cosmos. The way, when we climb a […]
We Are Pale Ramon
Ghostly demarcations of the land under cloud cover, taken over the US midsection during a recent cross country flight. My very clever and well read niece Rebecca Ricks sent me a link to an essay published in Frieze Magazine last year. Titled Of Ourselves and of Our Origins: Subjects of Art, it is an edited […]
- Aesthetics
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Wood, Water and Meaning
Studio view, South Boston Art making is, for me, a zone of inchoate nonlinearity, one that does not have the Wallace Stevensish delineations* to mark direction or any measure of “progress” (a word that, these days in particular, seems to always need to wear a pair of quotes.) Mostly I am thankful for having worked […]
- Children's Art
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1000 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
Listen, Tell, Draw at Bergamot Station Another memorable exhibit seen while we were in LA: This one was at Bergamot Station (in Santa Monica) although not inside any of the many galleries at that location. Sponsored by the Santa Monica Museum, the installation featured the art of children responding to Wallace Stevens’ poem, 13 Ways […]
Shadow Dancing
I’m still combing the beach of Bly’s small book, A Little Book on the Human Shadow. In some ways this is a sequel to my earlier posting, The Thatness. Bly is so open about his woundedness, in person and in his poetry. I don’t think I know of another poet who is so unabashedly brought […]
The Thatness
From a distance Closer still I’ve been in a silent streak these last few days. Is it because the fall is so exceptionally beautiful this year that I am feeling even more speechless than usual? Perhaps. But also I think it is because I’m deep in a dig. This time it is a new curiosity […]
The Stevensian Sense
Wallace Stevens, right, with Robert Frost in Key West, circa 1940 (Photo, Alfred A. Knopf) In today’s New York Times Book Review, Helen Vendler reviews the first edition of Wallace Stevens’ poetry to be published in 20 years. This new volume is the work of John Serio, editor of the Wallace Stevens Journal and by […]
Elegies
Elegy, by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905) who was in fact the most successful and popular painter of his era, the very embodiment of everything the Impressionists were fighting against. I’ve had some provocative back and forths with Lisa the Poet regarding what poems can and cannot do. Poetry that is about poetry: Valid? The abuse of […]
Paper Boats
I’ve had a lot of conversations recently with other bloggers (as well as some committed non-bloggers) about the pros and cons of what this thing is that so many of us are collectively doing. So finding this quote in the “Up Front” section of the Sunday Times Book Review seemed well timed. Leah Hager Cohen […]