September 26: Lane Falcon

My dear friend Lane Falcon is in her final year at Sarah Lawrence in poetry although she's managed to cover a fair amount of fiction as well. Her poem and observations follow.

Jackson Pollack’s  “Autumn Rhythm”
To him, to live
was to be entwined— to stand outside
that nest of rusted wire
was to die. 

Observations

As usual, lovely to see Caitlin, with whom I can talk in tongues about art and poems and people. Going to The Met made me want to get fired from my job and collect unemployment for a few months, like my sister. If only we were allowed to drink coffee in there, it would be the perfect place to hibernate. I almost ran over a couple of little old ladies but that’s nothing new and luckily no one cursed me. Caitlin seems very at home among the sculptures and canvases and, at the same time, tentative, respectful. I’ve never been so close to a Pollack painting, I don’t think. Just prior to us sitting down, I’d been telling Caitlin how I never really thought of Pollack paintings as visceral, despite something I read recently that compared his painting to the poems of Sharon Olds. His stuff always seemed so abstract to me in comparison to Sharon Olds’ version of urgency. Sitting there, though, I kept thinking how art is a metaphor for the artist’s perception of the world (duh!) and how immediate and seething his painting is. Not every emotion has a perfectly carved image to represent it. I think, in poetry, this sort of effect can be likened to the use of diction, music as opposed to image. Music is as immediate as image, right, as far as plucking at the soul strings (pun intended, but only after realizing it was there)?

September 22: Mellisa McCarter

Mellisa a fellow Sarah Lawrence poetry graduate, was a pleasure to write with and I very much enjoyed her ideas about various pieces throughout the museum. Her poem and observations are below.

Photo Credit due to the John Singer Sargent Gallery

The Wyndham Sisters, 1899
                  (A Portrait by John Singer Sargent)



We always have flowers at hand
to make company more pleasant,
removed before they die
at the first sign of browning.
So why is Mother in the background
if not to remind us of our own mortality?
The painter saw only what he meant to see,
blanched the peonies and compared us to gardenias
by applying his salve to our complexions.
Pamela didn’t trust him to overlook her maternal waist,
not with the evidence behind us on the wall.
Madeleine, impatient and a little bored,
the shadows were left on her face.
I saw opportunity right away,
gave the canvas all of my youth
with a look that said beneath this skirt
are legs that could strangle a man.
Though, looking back I’m not so sure
if we weren’t a portrait of death to be

rising from a chiffon vapor.

Observations:

Trying to explain to a friend a quote by E. L. Doctorow, “Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia,” I found it difficult to explain the voices that creep into the writer’s head without sounding like a lunatic myself. But, anyone who has written while viewing art will understand exactly what this means.

I find that one of the best tricks to jumpstart these voices is to go to an art museum and write. There’s something about seeking out a narrative that’s not your own or an image that breaks you out of a daily pattern and puts you into the realm of the unordinary.  It frees the voice within—or gives you a borrowed voice with which to stir the pen. Even an empty room at The Met teems with voices and characters from the imagination. Just as yoga releases energy from stretching the body,  art releases the dormant mind.

The Met was a wonderful place to start writing as it houses more than paintings.  I found that it was easy to write once I sat down.  Moving about, my eyes preferred to sponge up everything for later. I chose to write an ekphrasis rather than just free-writing, eager at the moment to explore the mysteries of detail in “The Wyndham Sisters” by John Singer Sargent. I found a lot going on in the portrait just by their expressions alone.


Thirty days is about what you need to really appreciate everything that the Met has to offer.  I tried to take in as many rooms as I could just before I left mid afternoon.  I could imagine how odd I looked bouncing from room to room, pausing here and there and scribbling a note or two for future poems, but otherwise scanning as much as I could take in before my departure.  Brilliant idea, Caitlin.  Thanks for the great time.

September 14th

The Steps of the Met are really a confusing place to meet anyone, but thanks to cell phones I managed to find Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick there. Shannon is a fellow Sarah Lawrence Grad, a poet, photographer and fellow member of a writing group.




We started off with a long photo taking wander in the European painting gallery. We started to write in the same room that Lauren Hilger and I wrote in on the second of September, we then moved to Gallery 20: Tiepolo, and finally drifted to the European Sculpture Court.

I actually wrote the poem I am posting today in the first room, Gallery 30, after a painting by Pietro Testa entitled Alexander the Great Rescued from the River Cydnus. It is my first legitimate Ekprahstic poem although it is more about the story of Alexander then about the painting itself. Shortly after completing the painting Testa drowned in the Tiber, apparently a suicide.




Cydnus

It was just a river
in Tarsus, a place
to spend the night
on a long campaign.

The retreating Persians,
reduced to distant tents,
the scurry of soldiers.
Alexander's men resting
before victory.

Alexander went to Cydnus
to wash the blood
from his body.

Water was nothing new to him.
He had yet to cross the Ganges,
may never have, but Aristotle
taught him to swim
a boyhood ago, time
a Gordian knot.

His body, familiar with waves,
froze in the water,
abruptly did not belong
to his mind.

Sinking body rescued
by an attendant. Crown,
shards of pottery, saved.




Factors
Day of the Week: Tuesday
Occupancy of Museum: Moderately busy
Arrived at: 12:00
Departed at: 2:15
Read on Commute: I finished The Black Dahlia (I was unsatisfied with the ending but otherwise very much enjoyed it).

September Second

Today I had my first guest, Lauren Hilger, friend and former teaching partner. Her poem is forthcoming tomorrow. Lauren led the way on my request and we found ourselves in Gallery 36: Carracci, Reni and Geurcino.

The room was red and dominated by religious icons, with some greco-roman inspired art and a painting of a sorceress thrown in.

Writing was harder today for me. Although I had some interesting ideas I did not have anything that really qualifies as a fully formed poem.

Lauren wrote a lot while standing, and that is something I want to do more in the future.

I wrote my first Ekphrastic poem after seeing the following painting. The painting and my poem share a title.



Rest on the Flight to Egypt

Tip my head against the seat's
blue cotton. Sleep close.

The pilot's voice
comes on overhead, turbulence.

My seatmate crosses her body, determined thumb
and fat forefinger connecting
with each covered breast.



Factors
Day of the Week: Thursday
Occupancy of Museum: Fairly empty
Arrived at: 2:00
Departed at: 3:15
Read on Commute: The World Without Us, Allan Weisman
Tone of Writing produced: Self Aware