Tag Archives: art

Legacy vs the present

For National Poetry Month, I’ll be posting a poem here every few days…something from one of my books and chapbooks.

First, though, musings on why it matters to me that my poems get collected in book form. I’ve been asked about this by a few people recently, sparked by conversations about the changing technology of “print,” and also artistic purpose, and even the concept of legacy. If I were a visual artist–say, a painter–there would be objects my hands had produced. Even a mediocre painter creates something apparently lasting or worth something. You die, and your paintings go to family members or to flea markets where people can purchase them (for the frames if nothing else…). A ceramicist may make truly useful things such as bowls and mugs; those items can last and be used, even if they end up in thrift shops or post-apocalyptic archeological digs. Maybe the painter or potter isn’t remembered, but the product endures for awhile.

But poems? So many people leave behind sheaves of unread, unpublished, perhaps private writing, much of which won’t resonate with anyone. Even if it could, the chance that anyone would care enough to sort through before burning or recycling and uncover a heretofore unknown genius is vanishingly small. I, for one, am not writing for eternity or for the future. I write for the now. The main reason I want to get books in print is that the product (a book! I love books!) matters while I’m here. After I die, no one will want my pile of drafts, old journals, revisions, false starts–not even my children. And why should they? Will future society value archives of anyone, let alone very minor poets of the early 21st c? Maybe the demise of technologically-based societies is right around the corner. All the more reason to work in and for the present moment. If I garner a few readers today, I feel blessed.

~ Today’s poem is from my 2011 FootHills Publishing chapbook The Capable Heart.

No Long Farewells

The weedy field.
On the rise beyond,
armies of brown corn,
ready to fall.
Willow looses streamers,
yellow kites
floundering in
tall grass.
I look at my hands, 
fingers gold. We
walk past grapevines.

Later I think of this day
as a drafty barn,
sun on its walls,
clouds high beyond rafters:
roofless. 
Nothing blocks our vision
for once. No blinders.

There is little time
for long farewells.
A light goes on.
Your bus is leaving now.
Moon follows you home.

Life story

My current slow-read is K. Setiya’s book Life Is Hard: How Philosophy Can Help Us Find Our Way. While there are many aspects of this philosophical book that interest me and pertain to current or recent experiences in my life, something that gained my attention regarding writing is the author’s suggestion that the concept of failure as a loss is bound up with cultural narratives. If we imagine our lives as arcs with the aim of goals, journeys’ ends, attainment of heart’s desires, finding true love, and the like, Setiya argues, it is too easy to feel that we are failures, and to despair or grieve. Maybe we should not be so caught up in narratives, he suggests.

Hmm. As a poet who writes a good deal of what may be termed “lyrical narrative” work and as a human who loves a good story, I’m more drawn to theories of story-as-essential-to-humans; I’m thinking here of Daniel Dennett and Brian Boyd, about whom I’ve blogged in the past (I will place those links at the end of this post). Nonetheless, poetry is often writing about what is NOT a story; some of my favorite poems have no story per se to tell, yet they move me to reflection and/or to emotional resonance. Hence they feel deeply significant.

Photo by Elliot Ogbeiwi on Pexels.com [Despair]

And if you have happened to click on the links to the right of this page that lead to my poetry online, or purchased and read my books (thank you, dear readers!), you are sure to find several pieces that are not even remotely narrative. As someone who has struggled with self esteem and ambition, and often felt myself a failure, Setiya’s philosophical undoing of the concept that a well-lived or meaningful life entails having “successes” comes as a relief. Whether one decides to accept his idea–I guess that’s up to you. It’s a book worth reading given how anxious contemporary American citizens seem to be and how powerless and despairing we often feel.

Colleagues have often asked why I don’t write fiction, and I respond that much as I love stories, I am no good with plots. It occurs to me that I cannot imagine writing a memoir, either. First, my life doesn’t strike me as being all that interesting, and second–I don’t think of my life in plot lines. It has been, instead, a series of experiences that mainly connect because my body and my ego-self are being carried more or less randomly through life on earth while I observe the world and participate in whatever moment I happen to find myself inhabiting. So it seems I need to locate a book Setiya mentions, Jane Alison’s Meander, Spiral, Explode. Whenever I get around to reading and reflecting on it, I’ll post here.

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Here are links to posts about art, storytelling, narrative urges, etc.

The narrative vein

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Art and “human intelligence”

Poetry mentors

Rosemary loved red roses

I learned, this week, that Rosemary Cappello has died. She was among the first people to encourage my writing and was an advocate for poetry and the arts in Philadelphia, where she lived for most of her life. I would not call her a mentor of mine; but she has been mentor to many other people as well as instrumental in setting up poetry reading series, poetry events, and other gatherings. All while also editing and publishing Philadelphia Poets Journal, a literary magazine that started as an 8-page photocopied zine and became a 100+ page annual journal…what energy, what devotion! And such kindness–when I first met her in the early 1980s, we saw each other often at poetry readings and open mikes. Then I moved away, first to Connecticut and then to the Lehigh Valley. Yet whenever I returned to Philadelphia for a poetry event, it seemed Rosemary was there. She always remembered me, too! In recent years, I’ve encountered her on Zoom readings and events. And I knew she had health struggles and trouble with mobility, but she never flagged in her enthusiasm for the arts.

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If Rosemary, bless her heart, was not one of my poetry mentors, helpful and kind as she was, who were my mentors–and what exactly is a mentor? A teacher, a guide, a supportive expert in one’s field? Someone who advises, offers a network, feeds the soul, provides a model? Yes–but more than that, perhaps.

At my university, there are several programs or projects that purport to offer mentorship, but I get different answers when I ask people who qualifies as a mentor. It has made me think about my own mentors, most of whom have been in the creative writing field. I mean, I could count my dad or mother, but parents generally aren’t considered mentors—they’re doing another job, that of parenting.

This concept came up recently not only from my workplace, where we are launching programs to have our students be mentors to incoming freshmen, but also from a recent interview with Ocean Vuong that has been making the writing-related social media rounds. [link is here]

This video kind of floored me. I am aware that Vuong is young—but 33? He’s my son’s age! Much as I love my intelligent and funny son, he doesn’t possess the insightful earnestness that comes through in Vuong’s presentations, interviews, and writing. Not to mention his teaching! I am not so sure, at twice Vuong’s age, that I possess those qualities, either; yet I know I have been a mentor to some friends and students, mostly by accident. What defines mentorship?

I have not formulated a definition for poetry mentor or life mentor yet, but considering the possibilities may help me recognize what mentorship is and what it means. Therefore, I think I will devote the next few blog posts to beloved and talented friends and colleagues whom I consider to be my mentors. Alas, some of them have departed this earth, but that doesn’t mean their influence has vanished. I hope that writing and posting about them will keep the memory of them alive in that way that human beings have of recalling and integrating the compassionate and useful persons we’ve known and loved into the present moment.

Next time I post, I’ll have things to say about Ariel Dawson, to whose memory my most recent chapbook collection is dedicated.

Living with history

It’s complicated, history. It engages with things I love, such as art, in complex and often contradictory ways. How did a person with such fascist tendencies write such enduring, challenging work? How could such a misogynist womanizer create paintings of surpassing depth and beauty? Why was a person who was so concerned with the welfare of others so neglectful of his or her family?

Alex Ross, writing about classical music in The New Yorker‘s September 21 issue:

“The poietic* and the esthetic should have equal weight when we pick up the pieces of the past. On the one hand, we can be aware that Handel invested in the business of slavery; on the other, we can see a measure of justice when Morris Robinson sings his music in concert…there is no need to reach a final verdict–to judge each artist innocent or guilty. Living with history means living with history’s complexities, contradictions, and failings…Attempts to cleanse the canon of disreputable figures end up replicating the great-man theory in a negative register….Because all art is the product of our grandiose, predatory species, it reveals the worst in our natures as well as the best.”

People are complicated and contradictory. None is perfect. The worst in our natures can be compelling, even inspirational.

Even in history, where it’s famously said the victors write the verdicts, such verdicts can be overturned, the stories made new, retold from different perspectives, satirized. I love that Ross calls humans “grandiose and predatory” but notes our capacity for creating beauty nonetheless. Rings true in my experience, and sounds a lot like what poets do.

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*The terms were coined by semiotician Jean-Jacques Nattiez, with poietic referring to the productive process of art (its creation) and esthetic with the receptive process (its impact upon the listener-viewer-reader).

If you are curious, you can see and hear Morris Robinson singing the bass in Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony on YouTube. (I couldn’t find him singing Handel online).

Wish, will, motivation

Lately, I have been turning my mind to thoughts about what we human beings mean by “will” and how closely will coincides with, or basically means, consciousness. I think Kant defined the difference between wish and will by saying that the latter involves action–people wish for peace, but will leads them into war. Maybe I am perpetuating a too-simplified (or simply wrong) concept regarding Kant. I should look it up before posting. Anyway, consider:

Suppose I wish I could win $50 million in the lottery. I may wish to win as much as I like; but while buying three $1 tickets doesn’t increase likelihood of my winning by much, it is nonetheless an action that moves me from wishing to possibility. (Very small statistical possibility, but better than buying no ticket.)

Voting, for example, is an act. An act of will. Though I may wish to have had other choices on the ballot…

~

“What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope?” (Critique of Pure Reason, 1781)

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I am much more familiar, though not intelligently conversant with, Kant’s writings on art and aesthetics. It does cheer me that he posits poetry as the “greatest” art because it expands the human mind through reflection, stimulates the imagination [not that I am at all biased about poetry, myself].

Much of Kant’s thinking about what is provocative, expressive, and beautiful in art seems logical on the page but does not quite feel true to my experiences of art, however; except that it does feel true that creating art is an act of willing, not wishing, and that art emerges from the will to express.

Is what philosophers call “will” the same as what psychologists call “motivation”?

~

How about this statement, which I hear frequently from students and which I readily admit to having uttered: “I wish I were more motivated.” Is that wishing to have the will, but lacking the will to have the will?

(No wonder learning English is so difficult.)

Perhaps needless to say, these past few days I have been feeling a lack of motivation.

astronomy clouds dark evening

Photo by Tomas Anunziata on Pexels.com

 

“Star light, star bright
first star I see tonight
wish I may, wish I might…”

 

 

 

Observation, memory, & art

Simon Watts has died. Probably you have not heard of him. His father, Arthur Watts, was a talented illustrator for the British magazine Punch, among other publications. My readers are unlikely to be familiar with him, either. His sister, Marjorie-Ann Watts, is an illustrator, novelist, and memoir-writer in the UK. Her books are not readily available in the USA, so my readers probably do not know of her, alas. Simon’s maternal grandmother was Amy Dawson-Scott, aka “Sappho,” poet, novelist, and British literary hostess who founded English PEN. If you have not heard of her, you may have heard of PEN International, a major writers’ organization.

Oh, such interesting relations and associations!

Simon, who turned 90 a week ago, needs an elegy–but I cannot write one, at least not yet. We have been friends for 35 years; and even though he hasn’t lived nearby, we will miss his presence in our lives because he corresponded well. He sent letters, and emails with memoir documents attached, and photos. He kept up with our children even into their adulthood. He called us. We visited. He told the best stories–always mirthful and full of twists. He wrote articles on sailing, boatbuilding, furniture-making, and sent little essay-type memories to his friends and family.

He hailed from England, emigrated to the US in the 50s, and loved Nova Scotia, San Francisco, and Portugal. He has family in the US, Britain, and Australia.

~~

I was scouting about the internet looking at his work and his family’s stories and came upon his father’s article on drawing in black and white, written in 1934 about a year before Arthur’s early death (he died in an airplane accident). This section struck me as so relevant to my own understanding about both sketching and writing–good writing, poetry, journalism–is also, foremost, about observation and memory.

Speaking of memory and observation, how much I wish that I had trained mine more. How I wish I had employed that excellent method of looking at an object, going into another room to draw it, returning to refresh my memory, and so on, until that drawing was completed without it and the object ever having met, as it were. What a training for an artist interested primarily in character, who sees for a minute a face which, if he cannot draw from memory, he will never draw at all!

I believe I am right in saying that, ages before such a thing as photography was even guessed at, this was the method by which Chinese artists were taught … So developed did their powers of observation and memory become by this training that by shutting their eyes, opening them for the fraction of a second, and shutting them again, they could keep in their minds the visual image of what they saw long enough to be able to transfer that visual image to paper. It was in this manner that they were enabled to draw insects and birds in flight, and it is an indubitable fact that, when the camera was invented and ‘instantaneous’ pictures were produced, it was proved by comparison that these artists’ memorisations were perfectly accurate.

Stacks Image 61

I tried that method myself, but, having no stern master to goad me on and, alas that I should have to say it, being constitutionally lazy, dropped it; for it is the most exhausting form of study that I know.

~~

Simon Watts, the son of this artist (a man he barely remembers), inherited somehow–though expressed in an entirely different way–the recognition that we ought to note carefully and recall the world around us, revel in our memories, and share our knowledge and wonder in whatever ways we can.

He saved historic wooden sailboats by carefully measuring them, building his own versions, and reproducing his designs for others to build.

In the photo below, my daughter, at age 14, happily sails the Atlantic off the coast of Nova Scotia in the boat that graces the cover of his plans for Building the Norwegian Pram.

 

alice-pram 2004

Such memories fall into the category of immeasurably valuable. Right now, this photograph takes the place of any elegy I could compose. Sail on in peace, Simon!

 

Comfort zones redux

What do we mean by “comfort zone”? People use it frequently, especially in self-improvement and creativity-related writing. Has it become an empty phrase? It’s so subjective–which is entirely the point, I suppose. If we can manage to agree on what the idea means, we still must confront the continuum of such a zone. I reflect on my tolerance for aesthetic discomfort often, especially when I am reading or observing creative work. For example, I like listening to jazz; some jazz soothes, some excites, and some takes effort to hear–I have to be in the mood for confrontational experiments with sound such as performances by The Art Ensemble of Chicago.imagesAEC

Similarly, while I love art, I cannot imagine living with “Guernica” on the wall…or Goya’s “The Third of May.” Or anything by Francis Bacon. Some creative works are meant to push viewers out of their comfort zones; some are no doubt as uncomfortable to create as they are to view. A work of art that takes emotional and craft risks puts the artist not only at risk of critical rage or misinterpretation of intentions, but also at the very personal risk of failure.

And that effort is important, that willingness to fail. Without it, nothing invented or imagined can be achieved.

I am not a good painter, and trying to paint clouds or winter trees or landscapes means I am going to paint bad pictures. I have better gardening skills than painting skills, but I love trying a new seed or plant or cultivation method, even though the results often don’t succeed. Pushing the comfort zone has mixed but invaluable rewards.

Poems practically cry out to enter such territory. Often I find that even poems that contain in their lines and imagery moments of hope or great love and comfort simultaneously discomfit me. It fascinates me; how does the poet first compose, then revisit and revise, the poem that must surely be even more uncomfortable to write–to confront? (Search for any anthology on a difficult topic and therein will be many such poems.) Most of us prefer to avoid pain zones, so we stay within our comfort zones.

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In Zechariah 12:2, the Lord promises terrible punishments for the enemies of Judah. Elaine Scarry approaches the conundrum of pain’s subjectivity (among other things) in The Body in Pain. I find wonder and ideas in the continuum of pain zones, in the concept of pain as punishment versus the concept that life is dukkha and inevitably contains suffering, and many other perspectives that people take concerning anything from mild emotional stress to mental illness, age-related physical problems, various forms of “disability,” and the Wong-Baker FACES pain rating scale.

Here, from WORDPEACE online, a poem of my own that I found uncomfortable to write, and which some readers have told me is uncomfortable to read. Taking the risk:

A Cup of Reeling [for the sufferers]

“Pain is…language-destroying.” Elaine Scarry

It is I am told all in my head but the body how the body loves the head
where language resides in the soft and voluble brain
and hurt undoes every synapse until sweat and stress the bullet
between clenched teeth [as if to aid?] good god deliver me
groan swear-word ululation weep and reeling, eloquence undone.
The crucible my own right leg: fire pulley strain does not allow
gravity or, god, motion, my evidence convincing to me only to me
unavailable to others [no one privy to, spare me, my—agony—
no object but destruction of objects no intention but self-obliteration]
Pain’s constructed in waiting rooms, waiting for morphine
or anything anything; I am animal in pain and sentient in my pain.
Good god who dares believe in me now that I believe in nothing?

~

depositphotos_55589581-stock-illustration-danger-crocodiles-no-swimming-sign

Vocation, avocation

Somewhere recently–was it the Sunday New York Times?–I read an opinion essay about how recent surveys of US citizens indicate that we have fewer hobbies than we have had in years past. The columnist wondered whether that lack is due to a zeal to be the best at whatever we engage in–the best jogger we can be, the most avid cyclist, the best collector, knitter, paper-crafter, woodworker, violinist, what-have-you. She suggested we’ve somehow lost the joys of being hobbyists: amateurs who do or create something because it is fun or relaxing, or because trying to learn a new skill makes us feel good. A true hobby is something we don’t have to be perfect at, because that is not the point.

As my students wrestle with the tasks of college and their concerns about their futures, the concept of vocation arises often. What to do with a life? Earn enough money to live reasonably comfortably, even if the job is not a passion? What if it’s not even satisfying? Should people choose a bearable career and find enjoyment in avocations? Or persist at what they love even if society doesn’t always reward the path they’ve chosen? Or–the options are legion.

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I believe in vocation as passion, and I also practice hobbies. My career is in higher education, and I enjoy and learn from my job. My vocation is writing, particularly writing poetry; my passion lies in that direction more than any other, but poetry has not been a career path in my case.

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My hobbies have evolved over the years. For decades, gardening has kept me happily occupied out of doors–but I have no need to become a Master Gardener, and my gardens are often minor failures in one respect or another. The garden, however, soothes me, distracts me from anxieties, helps me to become a better observer, teaches me much. When learning about plants, I got interested in botany and wild flower identification, so I am a more informed hiker and nature-saunterer than I used to be.

IMG_5633

garden photo: pepper, sassafras leaf © 2018 by Ann E. Michael

 

Photography’s also a hobby I pursue, an interest of mine since my late teen years (back before digital). The view through the frame has always intrigued me, as well as the opportunities that different lens lengths offer the photographer as to framing and focus. I especially enjoy macro lenses. It’s fun to zoom in closely on insects, flowers, and small areas of everyday objects. Photography encourages different types of observation.

The earliest interest I can recall having is art: painting and drawing in particular. From the time I was tiny, even before I entered kindergarten, I loved to draw and paint and to look at art in books and museums. During my teen years, I studied art at Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia and headed to college thinking I would minor in the fine arts. My talent did not match my aspirations, and a thorough self-analysis at around age 20 led me to recognize I could be creative more successfully in other ways…by that time, I was writing more seriously than I was painting.

But now? I have taken up painting in acrylics. Mostly sketches of clouds. There’s no pressure on me to do well; I can paint many mediocre pictures of clouds and feel relaxed in the process, meditative, observant, a casual learner.

cloudsketch

mediocre acrylic sketch of clouds, by Ann E. Michael

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As I wrap up this post, I realize that my career and my hobbies have encouraged observation from multiple and new perspectives. And my vocation? Poetry practically relies upon the writer’s ability to switch into creative and imagined points of view, as well as to have the opportunity for closely-observed objects and experiences.

Vocation, avocation, passion, career. I count myself lucky.

Connections

 

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August has arrived and a few of our incoming freshmen are on campus already, as well as students on various fall sports teams who need to get a jump on the competition season. It was quite awhile ago that I was a teenage person entering my first year at college, but each year our students arrive with the same anticipation and excitement I felt. They’re ready to exercise a little responsibility, a little freedom, and to make the kinds of connections–personal, emotional, and intellectual–that will affect the rest of their lives one way or another.

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In the 1970s, science historian and television broadcaster James Burke created and hosted a show called Connections. I was a fan of the series because I loved the surprising ways discoveries, events in history, people, and accident led to innovations and the criss-crossing of continents and ideas. The interdisciplinary aspect of human culture, of science and the arts, fascinated me as a teen. Those networked ideas have shown up many times through my life.

Connections: The photo above was taken by my fellow student Steve Lohman when we were freshmen. Steve later attended Pratt School of Art.  We lost touch for a long time, and–I have forgotten how–I found his metalwork while I was looking for cover art for my book of poems The Capable Heart.

 

running_horse

Running Horse by Steve Lohman

Connections: I liked Steve’s wireworks, but I remembered him as a photographer. Granted, what a person pursues at age 17 or 18 is easily liable to change–but I was curious about how he started doing sculpture. When he mentioned he’d attended Pratt, I asked if he had ever met Toshio Odate, who taught there for years. “One of my favorite teachers!” said Steve. “I loved his class.”

Connections: My spouse took a job writing for a woodworking magazine, where he met Toshio, who wrote about Japanese tools and woodworking techniques. Meanwhile, Toshio was creating his own works of art at his home as well as mentoring many students. He’s now a long-time friend of ours. (Photo of Odate’s “Pride of New England,” below, by Laure Oleander).

toshio-pride copy

Connections: Neural networks, the embodied mind, the ways writing assists in psychological healing, the twists in a good novel’s plot, the turn in a poem, metaphor, surprise. The unexpected thrills us–unexpected connections fill us with curiosity and a kind of joy, as does the closure.

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Connections: The commercial creation Thinkhub, invented for teaching, offers yet another example of connections. A cultural thinkhub project based in Toledo, midstory.org has produced my poem “River by River” as a soundscape: click here.

The project researchers found my poem in the anthology I Have My Own Song for It: Modern Poems of Ohio. Look around, folks–connections are everywhere, and we learn from them.

 

Seemingly small stuff

Things to view, things to think about.

Sub Rosa’s post on floral aesthetica here.

IMG_4663

Emily Dickinson’s herbarium, thanks to Harvard (it takes a few seconds to load) here.

qalace ed

William Bartram‘s 18th-century drawings of American flora.

bartramx

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Lovely words from Lesley Wheeler, and so true for me, too: “…reading and writing puts me in an honest place. Plus, while poems contain struggle of all kinds, they also constitute separate worlds it can be a great relief to enter, because good poems are not unjust or disruptive of bodily integrity.”