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Posts Tagged ‘Art’

The Price of Nothing

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 7, 2021| 6 Comments »


for “the lucky buyer” who “went home with a certificate of authenticity” for an “immaterial sculpture” by Salvatore Garau


What could be more valuable
than nothing? The nothing that
frames “The Thinker,” the nothing
that holds every bowl,
every vase, every bust, every thought.
Let others buy the clay, the steel,
the papier-mâché. I will be satisfied
with nothing more than nothing.
Nothing pleases me. Nothing
enchants me. Nothing,
as Heisenberg says,
has a weight. Just think
of the space here beside me
where you are not.
If someone asks me why
I have a five-by-five-foot
empty space taped off in my home
with a plaque that says I Am,
it is because I am so in love
with nothing. Imagine it—
nothing, the color of happiness,
nothing, the size of love,
nothing, the shape of god.

This poem was published in Rattle’s Poet’s Respond on June 13, 2021

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Anna Akhmatova Speaks After the Revolution

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 27, 2018| 3 Comments »

 

 

 

We dreamed of revolution.

What came to Russia was terror,

terror that left us voiceless,

faceless, betrayed.

Blood in the streets.

Blood splattered on boots.

Blood that stank like blood.

 

I stood seventeen months

in prison lines three hundred women long,

waited to plead with the hangman

for my son. Seventeen months

I listened to the scrape

of the iron key that never

opened the lock.

 

Leave, said my friends

as they fled our land,

Leave Russia forever, they said.

 

But I could no more leave

the birches and pines,

the high mountains and endless steppes,

no, I could no more leave

the Russian people

than I could leave my own skin.

 

The government called me

an anachronism. They snarled,

“half nun, half whore.” They claimed

I contributed nothing to communism.

Burned my books. Forbid me

to publish more.

 

They killed my ex-husband.

My next husband, too.

They claimed intelligence

was a sin.

 

But when we’re silenced,

that’s the summons for our voice to grow,

and I went from the voice

of one woman wanting

to the voice of over

a hundred million mouths screaming,

screaming for freedom, for justice, for life.

 

They thought that by corseting my words

they could contain them. But they thought wrong.

Now, I whisper poems into the ears of my friends

and my words travel on, become living poems,

poems that throng in the streets.

Poems that stand in line and speak

to the women with blue lips who wail.

Poems that turn into ribbons

that flutter beyond the butcher’s reach.

Poems that slip beneath locked doors

that speak of suffering, futile war.

 

Now I know what art is for.

 

 

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Expressionism

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on September 11, 2017| 4 Comments »

 

 

Let me be the canvas, then,

and you be Jackson Pollock—

be the wild one, the one

who burns, the one who

never sleeps and never yawns,

the one who steals the sun

and gives it to me.

Be the one who transforms me

again and again with colors,

ardent and avid and mad—

no, let me be the canvas,

and let life be the painter,

and you, you be the paint.

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Next Chapter

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 21, 2017| 4 Comments »

 

 

 

Mom, she says, Stop crying.

She’s embarrassed for me.

 

I can’t stop. After three hours

of snuggling on the green couch,

 

we are nearing the end of our book,

where the silverback gorilla

 

and the baby elephant say goodbye

to the girl who has helped them

 

leave their cages. It is not

the farewell that makes me weep,

 

though that, too, but the way

that the girl and the gorilla

 

share a passion for art. It’s so good,

I say to my girl between sniffs,

 

it’s so rare and so good to find someone

who really understands you.

 

She looks at me as if she will never

comprehend how such a thing

 

could make someone cry.

My tears land on the end of the chapter,

 

leaving a wet trail I don’t

expect her to follow, not yet,

 

her small hand already

pushing on mine to turn the page.

 

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Throwing Away the Canvas

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 8, 2017| 1 Comment »

 

A response of sorts to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18

 

 

Not that I wasn’t fond of it—the blues

and golds and thick brush strokes—perhaps it was

because I was so fond of it I threw

the art away, that life-size portrait of

eternal summer, mine, the painting in

which one hand reaches for the sun, the other

grows dark roots into the earth. Now all

that lives of those bright lines are these two hands

that painted them. With something less than care

I rolled the canvas tight and took it to

the trash, the company of grapefruit rinds

and last year’s mail. By tea, I’ve gotten used

to how the wall looks—empty, open, free—

already dreamed what else these hands might do.

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If You Can’t Make it to the Gallery …

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on October 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »

then you can enjoy the show right here on your screen. Last week was the opening of In Three Lines, a collaboration in art and poetry, at Gallery 81435 in Telluride.

I recommend listening to cello while you look through these images … that is what we had playing in the gallery, and the rich and resonant tone of the instrument seemed the perfect partner to these intimate and provocative pieces.

Here is a link to the pieces that are still available for sale, and if you look around the site, you will find that you can see the whole show. Thanks to the gallery for putting together this virtual tour.

The show is done in partnership with Snowmass artist Jill Sabella. For two years, we have been corresponding to create this comprehensive body of work. We took turns sending each other three-line inspirations. The pieces in white came first, and the pieces in beige were responses.

You can purchase books at wordwoman.com. And for more information about the artist, visit her website here. the-house-on-fire1

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Art Opening: In Three Lines

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on October 3, 2016| Leave a Comment »

Here’s a bit of information about the upcoming show, In Three Lines and (I hope) book launch for Even Now … Thank you Telluride Inside & Out! 

 

In Three Lines: Telluride Inside & Out

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The Art of Less

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on September 8, 2016| 2 Comments »

 

October 6

Art Opening: In Three Lines

Telluride, CO

81435 Gallery, 6-9 p.m.

 

For two years I have been collaborating with artist Jill Sabella, experimenting with simplicity—a leaning toward less and the more that blossoms out of it. We took turns sending each other work to respond to. The result: 45 intimate pairings, in which three-line drawings and three-line poems reflect each other. Some are framed individually and others framed in conversations of three. Our vision: Elegant. Provocative. Inviting. Poignant. The artwork began with charcoal thoughts, and later the same drawings were done on rice paper with Sumi ink and brush.

In addition to the framed artwork, the pairings have been made into a book, even now (Lithic Press, 2016), which will be available in just a few weeks!

The pieces  will be for sale in the gallery. If you are curious about purchasing a piece but are not able to make the show, I will help you see the images to make your selection. Single pieces are $250 and triptychs are $800. The show will be up until the first week of December. For more information, contact Molly Perault, 728-3930 or molly@Telluride Arts.org or Rosemerry at 970-729-1838, rosemerry@wordwoman.com

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A Lesson in Shading

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on October 1, 2015| 1 Comment »

So first, you imagine the light bulb,

he says, then he draws one on the page

so I won’t have to imagine too hard.

And then, he says, you draw a dark line

under the object, assuming that there

will not be much light underneath it.

He moves his pencil forcefully

to darken the bottom of the square.

Next, he says, you move your hand

as far from the light as possible

and make it darker there.

I watch as he fills in the spaces

where white has been.

There is something vital

in all of us that leans toward the dark.

I notice the depth that the shadows

have brought to the page, so like the shadow

into which we are pulled and pulled.

Even now, the darkest parts of us

are kindling our greatest light.

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And So It Goes

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 11, 2015| 1 Comment »

Thirty thousand years before the Stone Age,
someone made a bracelet of chlorite.
In the sun, the same sun that we know,
the bracelet glittered and reflected the rays.
In the night, just as dark and steep
as our night, the bracelet cast a deep shade
of green. Green, even then, was the color
of growth and new life. And the bracelet,
say the scientists, would have been worn
as protection from evil spirits. Not much has changed,
really, though the Denisovan people are long,
long gone from the caves in Siberia, gone
from the planet forever. But I think of how they,
like the homo sapiens, were moved
to make beauty. How they, too, perhaps stood
outside on a clear spring night
and felt the wind, the bright slap of the stars,
the possibility that art might save us.

http://www.sott.net/article/296220-40000-year-old-bracelet-made-by-extinct-human-species-found

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