Poems are made from images
Author: Karen Vanhercke
I’m happy to announce a NEW creative writing workshop!
My favourite way to remember an artwork, is to write a short poem about it. Whenever I re-read such a poem, I’m transported back to the moment of encounter. The process of finding words to describe the artwork, leaves a clear cognitive pathway that I find easy to re-trace. Stronger than a photograph, the poem brings back all kinds of sensory memories. I keep them not for literary purposes, but as bottled moments. Sometimes the process is not finished and the words keep fermenting until the cork pops out!
Three of the four poems below were written for artworks by Lithuanian artists, whose works I discovered in MO museum and in the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius. The fourth poem was triggered by a photo by a British artist that I saw in New York. I’m curious if the words will resonate without the pictures next to them. I intentionally did not illustrate this blog post, because I want to give you an opportunity to visualise the poems yourself. I did however, provide the online references: if you click on the names of the museums you will find the images there.
Eglė Gineitytė, Friends, 2007
MO Museum, Vilnius
The trick is to trace this icy horizon all the way back to summer, To travel from peppery snow to purple thrift. To play the trumpet of your friendship and to find it trotting along tirelessly, a little wet nose pointing west.
Romualdas Rakauskas, Blossoming, 1970
MO museum, Vilnius
When a black and white photo turns its volume up and pink petals of your laughter drift down from its frame to kiss my face and hands, I feel rich, just standing there, owning nothing but my senses.
Silvestras Džiaukštas, Plants for a Balcony, 1974
National Gallery of Art, Vilnius.
This oddly angular desert, Windows all around - They don't reflect you, Nor the pale faced flower That magically appeared On a small cactus - Clearly, you know, How to make things bloom -, But I can show you a boat Moored on the edge of a dream Ready to escape over green Water that never runs out.
Paul Graham, A shimmer of Possibility, (North Dakota) , 2005.
My engine already has miles on it When the crack of dawn slips a wave cloud Under the canopy of a 3 pump Station Merging metal and sky a deep Dieselrot If I were a North Dakota German, I might Slur my words this way: Bis Zum Horizont!