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| Graham Ward, "Child in Tarifa" This "starved-brush" painting is one that inspired one of my poems in the Red King manuscript, "The Stellar Child." Generation works both ways! I've also written some poems for Graham to use in a future gallery show. |
One of the curious things about this manuscript is that thirteen prints and paintings have been made in response to its poems, even though it is not yet out as a book--not even submitted. One of them is by Mary Bullington, and I've posted it several times before. Some came from a poem that has never ben submitted anywhere, written for a friend, who sent it into the aether. Eventually it landed in an artist's inbox and became a seed. What a surprise! I've always thought that a work should, in the ideal, be generative. So this makes me feel pleased.
Quite a number of poems about the Red King and the Fool (and Amara the alchemist and many others) are online, but if you would like to see a group of them at once, you may find some at Mezzo Cammin and at At Length. Of course, I have fiddled with them since....
Nothing is ever perfect, Marly, and if we try for absolute perfection, we are doomed never to get things done, as you well know.(The best is the enemy of the good. It is also the enemy of the very, very good.)
ReplyDeleteQuite so. Although now I am dithering over punctuation, for which there are rules. And exceptions.
DeleteGlad you liked his picture (in the comment below.) I like Graham and his pictures very much!
PS I love Graham Ward's picture--really nice work! (And the comment above was supposed to be published with my name and URL--somehow it wasn't.)
ReplyDeleteIt's hotlinked to your Facebook page...
DeleteI think this will be my favorite of your books. I love and cherish some of these poems, and have for ages.
ReplyDeleteI am so grateful you didn't just drop it. That would have been a tragedy.
Though I understand that publishing ekphrastic books is very very difficult (it has so far proven impossible for me with mine), I am sure that you will find or make a home for this one.
Looking forward to it.
It's not ekphrastic, actually... There's "The Stellar Child," though. And there's one that includes a description of a child's drawing... "The Miller's Son." So really only one or two out of 165 poems.
DeleteGood luck with that book!
Agh! I forgot to say "thank you" for your lovely comments. Moi, airhead.
DeleteOh, that is a laugh! I knew it! Shall take a look.
ReplyDeleteYou know you're done when you stare at a poem, take out a punctuation mark (one of those "optional" ones), and then put it back in after an hour of dithering. Basically the same for a novel--when you keep reading it and begin to change tiny things back to what they were in the prior draft.
I admit it! You have confused me! Nothing was there... What gives?
ReplyDeleteWell, now you are there. Very strange, Sir Blogger!
ReplyDeletei looked up "ekphrastic" on google and i still don't get it. something to do with riots in greece, i gather... but writing poetry is in itself a cosmically astounding endeavour; much luck with that!
ReplyDeleteProbably that's as close to being funny as riots in Greece can get! The (ahem!) Poetry Foundation says: "An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning." So basically it's a poet noodling around with an image. I do occasionally write one for painter friends who ask, but they're just a sort of side frolic.
DeleteI do wish that everybody who wrote poetry felt that it was "cosmically astounding." Probably it would cut down on the number of poems in the world.
On the other hand, making things is good for us... And probably that's true even for the not-well-made things.
tx. i'm enlightened. i think all persons should be required to write poetry or suffer consequences; maybe that would distract them from trying all the time to make things better...(i think it was james thurber who said: "let your mind alone!").
DeleteI don't really mind if they want to make potholders or some such instead! Though I do think it would be good if everybody tried to write a sonnet. Might clarify a few things.
DeleteTrying to make things better... Yes, there's a lot of trouble created by people who want to make things better. Also a lot of good. But it's hard for some to know which is which, I expect.
"crawling through the very long manuscript again for the third time in the past month."
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, and yet... There it is: technically finished. Amendments are so much more delicious than originating stuff.
I employ what people who are into mysticism call a mantra:
There are errors ahead, experience tells me there always will be, it is part of being an author that I must mutilate that which I previously thought was beautiful. Then revel in the benefits. The Hidden Stoicism.
Hah, that's good. Time is our cruel, kind friend in such enterprises. (I'm down to pondering commas at the moment. Then every now and then I see something that I missed entirely and rewrite part or all of a poem.)
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