A few years ago, I was lucky enough to get Arts Council DYCP funding to develop the writing side of my practice. Some of my previous installations had included text. Fast forward and I now can't stop writing! This drawer of my morning pages has given birth to many a poem! I hope to feel brave enough to share some of them soon!
Spring Forward
A poem inspired by me looking forward to the transition of Winter to Spring but still trying to live in the moment!
Ekphrasis
I’m spending some time at the moment responding to my own visual imagery/artworks through the medium of poems. I’m interested to see how this could develop.
Ekphrasis: “Description” in Greek. 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 (from Poetry Foundation).
According to Wiki, Ekphrastic poetry may have existed as early as the days of Homer, whose Iliad (Book 18) describes the Shield of Achilles, with how Hephaestus made it as well as its completed shape.
Although it initially came from the idea of description, the most successful ekphrastic poems go beyond mere description, responding to the work of art, conveying a deeper meaning.
The paintings of Edward Hopper have inspired many ekphrastic poems. Let’s see how I get on with inspiring myself!
The Life Cycle of Words
On my recent but 40-year delayed proper tour of Stratford (I grew up in Warwick just a few miles away), I went on a walking tour of the town.
Hearing stories about Shakespeare and his family made me mindful of the passing of history and my lifelong quest of trying to work out what time really is, and does it actually exist!?
One of the soundtracks to my life when I was visiting Shakespeare country as a young adult was ‘Time’ by Pink Floyd.
“And then one day you find ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun
And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death”
These lyrics resonated with me as much back then as they do now, not in a morbid way. Quite the opposite really, they remind me to seize the day.
Tours of place and time seem to seek out the materiality of existence so we can somehow find our place on that map. So the pure physicality of buildings can help us to connect with the places Shakespeare was known to have spent his days, what he did there, what he might have been experiencing at the time.
The guide reminded us of the vastness of the over 400 years since the death of Shakespeare’s son Hamnet by explaining that it is not known exactly where he was buried in the churchyard of the Holy Trinity because the ground moves on with its deaths.
How lovely of Maggie O’Farrell to honour Hamnet and his twin sister Judith by planting a Rowan tree and plaque in the churchyard.
If you have read Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet, you will get a sense of his life, his dad’s life, and the connection to Hamlet. I love that how regardless of death, of burials, words live on, how so many of us have since been inspired by the written works of Shakespeare, how the cycle of inspiration and response continues through time between writer and reader, reader, and writer.
Art and Text – a good marriage?
In Wind there is Time, Installation, Rufford Abbey Country Park
As a visual artist and writer, I sometimes get torn between expressing my ideas in visual form or, text form. So, I am constantly exploring ways to bring the two together; to see how words can enhance the meaning of my visual pieces and how images can bring another dimension to my poetry. Part of me wants the two to always be happily married together but, I realise that they can also be sometimes better just living apart. I don’t want their alliance to ever feel forced or arranged.
I’m conscious that I need to let them walk their own paths, side by side, in parallel and only bring them together when it feels that the amalgamation benefits both.
Written language within visual art has the power to block, to channel or to enable thought or emotion. It can be a bridge to be crossed or a barrier. Perhaps though, it can never be simply neutral?
It can seem as if visual interpretations fall within a deeper and wider sensory spectrum than that of words. But then I eat those words as soon as I have said them as I also know that words (woven well) can be incredibly powerful, wide-ranging, and descriptive.
I guess it all comes down to weaving, to matchmaking, to sensing when the two want to live in harmony or when they need to thrive by being independent.
I like the way artist Sol LeWitt put it….
“Since no form is intrinsically superior to another, the artist may use any form, from an expression of words (written or spoken) to physical reality, equally”.
Sol was a multi-disciplinary artist who produced over 50 artist’s books.
I have returned to working with artist’s books, exploring how the format can provide the platform for my images, concepts, and words to grow happily ever after!
Sorry!
I've written a poem in response to an image of a lithograph at the wonderful Mary Evans Picture Library. It moved me. I suspect my strong feelings are also in part down to reading the wonderfully written (and vivid) Ian McGuire's North Water - giving the reader a true sense of the brutal, cold, cruelty of the bloody business of whale-killing in the 19th century. To read the rest of the poem, please head over to the Mary Evans Picture Library at https://www.maryevans.com/poetry.php?post_id=12664&view=poem&prv=poem
An Epiphany!
On a poetry course recently, I found myself saying these words to a fellow student. This was a revelation; up until that moment, I had no idea just how much I care for animals and how it all started when I was pet monitor at school!
Witnessing Words
My world of words has just grown larger and richer thanks to the insightful and exceptional poetry teachings of poet Sarah Wescott.
This exciting journey with the written word continues and each step seems to be cementing a deeper connection with poetry.
“Poems can bear witness to the deep-soul moments.” Sarah Westcott.
I have learnt to pay more attention to what I hear, that poetry can take on all shapes and sizes and that it really can be as true and as authentic of an expression as visual art.
Language can be connector, facilitator, soother, uniter, conveyor, and transporter.
And ultimately, “all writing is a collaboration with yourself”. Sarah Westcott.
Poetry is giving me the ears to hear myself, to listen out for mother nature.
Between the Words
I have written short poems before and they often play a part in my installations. This week though, I have been reading about Haiku to work out if I need that kind of structure for the words that seem to come out at random, to see if Haiku and me are are a good match!
In Jane Reichold’s fabulous book - Writing and Enjoying Haiku, A Hands-on Guide, she writes . . .
“Poetry is what happens between the words. Words are like signposters or waymarker that allow the reader to follow the steps the author’s mind has taken to come to a poetic idea. Vision is seeing, and in seeing we recognise the thing which is portrayed in a new way…in poetry we do use pictures, but we demand that the reader supply them…….Haiku show the reader the things along the path the author’s mind has travelled.”
“Haiku are written from experience. You are not the author of haiku, they are gifts given to you …. they come through you but are not yours.”
It seems then that creating Haiku has a lot in common with the process of making visual art. I will have a go and see where it takes me!
Spending Time with Words
I think a part of me has been a bit shy of words up until now….believing that a picture could paint a thousand of them easily so, why the need? This from someone who loves books and has run out of book shelves! This from someone who has used words in previous works! This from someone who is in awe of good writing, in how it transports us, how it ‘speaks’ our language!
As I speak, I am embarking on a journey of spending time with words again; revisiting them, exploring language, text and writing in all its forms. Looking at how words and imagery can work in harmony - with me as some sort of conductor.
It involves discovering different writing styles, writing ‘morning pages’ and giving way for the pen to flow.
Thank you Arts Council.
