Poetry | Broadsides

Earth’s Cries Recorded in Space

The broadside, a distinctive form of artistry, came about in the 16^th century. Traditionally, a broadside was an attractive, eye-catching message scribed on a large sheet of paper and intended to be posted or hung in a public space, thereby transforming that space. By bringing a mixture of poetry and art to the people in this way, the poster or broadside became part of daily conversation

The modern broadside has the very same mission, each being an original literary-visual collaboration, an evocative combination of poetry and art meant to be enjoyed by a wide audience.  Thus displayed for all to see, the age-old mission of the broadside as street literature is accomplished. Any given viewer on any given day may be stimulated both by the language of the poem and the visual image, each in the service of the other

Whereas early broadsides were ephemeral, the modern broadside, using archival inks and papers, and executed by printers of high literary merit, has no such short life. Today, as in early works, text and graphics appear on a large sheet.  Each eloquent art poster or broadside is a work which represents a unique and innovative collaboration between a poet and an artist. In rendering a modern broadside, the visual or graphic artist experiments with forms and techniques influenced by his/her individual association with the poet.

The broadsides shown here are from the literary/visual collaboration of poet Irene Mitchell and artist Daniela Bertol.  They have created two series of distinctive broadsides "Seduction" and "Heart of the Matter", each a limited first edition archival print, numbered and signed.

 Choosing the Éclair

Epistle

Chiaroscuro

 

 Every Bright Green Yet Uncorrupted

 Gazing with Galileo

N.B.  “Gazing with Galileo” appears in Mitchell’s collection Sea Wind on the White Pillow (Axes Mundi Press).  All other poems appear in her new book, A Study of Extremes in Six Suites (Cherry Grove Collections)

events NYC | Homage to Black Mountain College and Its Legacy

A poetry reading and music performances at the Loretta Howard Gallery celebrated the legacy of Black Mountain College. Readers and performers included Margaret Leng Tan, Francine du Plessix Gray, John Yau, Vincent Katz, Maureen Howard and Dave Sear.

Black Mountain College, was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and other former faculty members of Rollins College, in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It introduced a new teaching and learning philosophy,  where art was the focus of several disciplines. An interdisciplinary approach, was central to all the student works, including musi composers, poets, and designers, including  Buckminster Fuller (who design and built the first geodesic dome) and John Cage. In Black Mountain College the breadth of experimental art and innovative design was accompanied by liberal thinking and free lifestyle; it was the first college to integrate. Unfortunately the college closed in 1954.

John Yau read from his own poem collections, Margaret Leng Tan played John Cage's composition on her "toy piano" Francine du Plessix Gray read poems from Jonathan Williams, the founder of the "Jargon Society" oress. The readings also included  some of Charles Olson's "The Maximus Poems" and Robert Creeley "Distance". Dave Sears concluded the evening with his music and lyrics recalling civil right battles against segregation. Zuccotti Park "Occupy"was often mentioned, with applause from the audience.

Strolling through the gallery after the very reading I saw a very inspiring exhibition showing the eclecticism of Black Mountain College explorations.

Kenneth Snelson's Tensegrity

 Buckminster Fuller

 Dave Sears

Events | Celebrating National Poetry Month

According to an essay by David Orr (“O! Poetry,” The New York Times Book Review, March 17, 2011), “ …poetry can’t approach mass culture with any sense of swagger.” Orr was referring to the April 2011 issue of The Oprah Magazine: “Spring Fashion Modeled by Rising Young Poets.”

Most poets, however, don’t have to worry about outfits or about how to extend poetry beyond the literary culture so that it reaches Everyman - because there is National Poetry Month to bring poetry home, at least in April, all springing buds being equal.

National Poetry Month is a movement begun in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets. Its mission is to foster an appreciation of poetry within the popular culture, and the Academy advocates ways in which this may be done: put a poem in your pocket, chalk a poem on the sidewalk, attend a poetry reading or festival, enclose a poem with your letter, memorize or recite a poem, and, of course, buy poetry books and poetry broadsides.

To become acquainted with broadsides, for example, you may wish to view “Seduction,” the first series of four broadsides, wrought as a collaborative effort between poet Irene Mitchell, and artist Daniela Bertol.

There is also that increasingly captivating aspect of poetry, its connection to the visual, or “visual poetry.” You are invited to view excerpts from the visual poem, “Venice of the Mind.” The the video is by Daniela Bertol, the text by Irene Mitchell.

Irene Mitchell

Poetry | BLUE RIVER by Gavin Keeney

BLUE RIVER

A blue river stretches
In the imagination,
Vast and preternaturally blue,
To the sea and what
Cannot be seen,
Broad- and island-soaked,
And as still as time
Before time.

Crossing its waters,
Floating on air,
Drifting with its current,
We traveled slowly,
Swept by the blue expanse
Toward eastern suns,
Two white slippers
Floating mid-river,
Idling in the cold breeze,
Cloudlike.

I have no idea
Who you were,
My fellow traveler
On this blue river.
I awoke to tell another
This tale.
To describe this blueness,
Of its wild-open trail
And silent depths,
Of its emptiness
And its woodland shores.

At first we were standing
At the forest edge
Wondering at how
To access this marvel,
To follow its blue
And full horizon,
To travel its length
And enter its breadth,
A blue and depthless
Path through forests,
Peopleless lands,
Below azure skies.
No one was out
Drifting aimlessly,
No fellow travelers
To be seen.
And what transported us
On this limitless current
Was invisible,
Or but a breeze.
No boat and no sail,
Two slippers idling
At midstream
Were the only sign of
A human presence –
Signature of the solitary.
Yet two, not one,
And as slight as paper.

A dream from some
Primordial shore,
And journey made
Or underway.
This royal river
Of vast expanse
Turned and flowed
Toward a sea
Unseen and surely
Unknown to eyes
That sailed the momentary
Measures
Of time itself
Before time was made –
Between bejeweled waters
And the azure sky.

GK (03/27/11)

Poetry | Why Is Everything I Know Wrong? | by Gavin Keeney

WHY IS EVERYTHING I KNOW WRONG?

Who is it
That has proved
Ethics superior
To morals?
Who is it
That has shown
Naturalism
Is best?
What force
Has made money
The Answer
To All;
The negation
Of anything
Remotely divine?

Who is it
That knows
To argue the law
Is to argue for rules
That in essence
Destroy
Both virtue
And truth,
Both morals
And laws;
What passes
As law
Is the passing
Of laws.

GK (01/21/11)

Thoughts | The Sublime

The Sublime - and Other Dimensions – in Poetry

SUBLIME – The sublime rises from the nobleness of thoughts, the magnificence of the words, or the harmonious and lively turn of the phrase; the perfect sublime arises from all three together.

Wm. Addis (probably 1604-1662)

As a poet, I cannot claim to ever have written in an exalted, grand or lofty style. That is not my intention as a lyric poet. I can, however, deliver a “lively turn of the phrase.”
In fact, I have rarely read a poem that I considered to be sublime – except for a very few , and those that come immediately to mind are: Poetry by Pablo Neruda, Dickinson’s I Died for Beauty, Ted Hugh’s translation of Ovid’s Venus and Adonis, and his translation of Racine’s Phèdre.
What I aspire to as a poet, is not the sublime in my art, but the duende, as named by Lorca, and described by him as a creative force or protean spirit, such as that of flamenco singers, in all
arts. It is said that the magical quality of a poem consists in its always being possessed by the duende, “a thunderbolt beautiful and terrible …so that whoever beholds it is baptized with dark water.”


Irene Mitchell

Poems | "Iceland" by Gavin Keeney

All one day dream of Iceland,

"Instant cold compress"

For what ails you,

For the excesses of

Neo-liberal capitalism.

Homeland of geo-thermal wonders,

Of lost races and dashed hopes,

Did Britain extract

Endless futures in exchange

For repatriating their guilt?

Iceland, home of sonic warriors,

Screwed by multinational capital,

Hard turn Left after hard times,

Sanctuary for Julian Assange

And all who might aspire to conspire.

Land of miracles and dissembling truths,

Land not of ice but eternal springs,

Land of possibilities and brightening airs,

Amid the wreckage of the new imperialism,

The farcical games of clutching naifs.

Iceland (not Greenland) pleases,

Hanging there is marking time,

In the light wonders of endless light,

Offset by the unspeakable night,

Beset by woes wholly unnecessary.

Benighted land of landscapes shorn

By glaciers, warriors, missionaries,

And the new gladiators, lance in hand,

Denuded land of perspicacity.

Mythical land of tarnished dreams,

Fouled by smelly finance capital,

Bedecked in giant-headed fishes,

And which rots first, after all,

From the head down?

Iceland, midway between here and there,

I will visit you soon,

To idle in that idleness of

Hastening slowly,

Never to spoil your secret.

Iceland, land of Cyclopean bankers,

Of middling managers and untimely volcanoes,

Of barren streaks of absolute beauty,

I’ll trade this poem

For dual citizenship.

GK (08/02/10)

Poetry Reading, May 17, 2009: Irene Mitchell and Paul Genega

“I’ve been listening to Irene Mitchell’s poetry for more than five years,” said Craig Hancock as he introduced the poet to the listening audience at the Kinderhook Memorial Library. “She pays a great deal of attention to language, but the language choice is always in service of the poem. Irene, like the best of poets, writes poems which are particular and universal – both at the same time.”
Mitchell, whose new collection, Sea Wind on the White Pillow, was just published by Axes Mundi Press, talked to the audience about her poetic style. “Nowadays,” she said, “poetry is a little pill, easily swallowed, instantly digestible. I strive to go beyond that prescription, preferring to write poetry that is remarkable for its layers of meaning, its musical quality, its blending of playfulness and profound seriousness.”
These are the qualities, among others, Mitchell finds in the work of poet Paul Genega, who shared the limelight that evening. Genega is the author of four full-length collections and four chapbooks. His awards include an individual fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the “Discovery”/The Nation Prize, and a citation in this year’s Allen Ginsberg Awards.
Among those present at the reading were Daniela Bertol, publisher of Axes Mundi Press, James Werkowski, Linda and Emily Bonin, Carol Derfner, Julie Johnson, Mark Hirschberg, and others who came to lend an ear to poetry. The poets signed copies of their collections following the reading at the library in Kinderhook, New York.