Poet Richard Wilbur (b 1921)

Richard Wilbur has been on my mind recently -- ever since I heard that he will be reading at the Folger Elizabethan Theater in DC on Tuesday, May 18.  A couple of his poems "The Beautiful Changes" and "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World" are on my list of favorite poems.  His poem "Mind" seems appropriate to our discussion of creativity -- and I offer the first stanza of it here.

Mind

Mind in its purest play is like some bat

That beats about in caverns all alone,

Contriving by a kind of senseless wit

Not to conclude against a wall of stone.

     . . .

"Mind" is from Collected Poems: 1953-2004 by Richard Wilbur (Waywiser Press, 2004).  Buy it!  You will find rich enjoyment!

Gwyenth Davis ---- the lifestyle and discipline of a writing career

Gang,

One of our major topic areas is nurturing the creative spirit. I have attached a link to a interview with a well known author, Gwyneth Lewis, who describes her habits and discipline in her creative trade of writing. She writes much poetry, some novels, and also some screenplays. The interview is a bit slow and rambles at times, however I found some real meat from a person who full-time plies her creative writing skills. 

Tap here for the interview 

Among the observations I found interesting are:

-- -- Gwyneth typically has several projects going, when stuck on one she goes to the others.

-- -- she gives poetry a priority because it's elusive, the thoughts could disappear, a novel on the other hand is more of a steady effort and less elusive

-- -- a major point is that she shows up for work. I have heard several other authors and artists say the same thing, typically in response to the question of a missing muse. The point is that even though feeling somewhat uninspired the commitment to a daily writing routine is a necessary component for success.

-- -- even when the schedule has no slack time, Gwyneth says even a 10 minute effort is worth it.

-- -- Gwyneth makes the point that she likes to stay porous, open to every experience and taking everything in. Making herself open and will vulnerable to the world. However, she adds that when dealing with editors and publishers where there is a business exchange she has to change her temperament, otherwise she would be taken advantage of.

-- -- Gwyneth reads extensively of other authors and unabashedly borrows their style and structure. She says the classics have so much to teach and she is first in line to imitate or at least interpret and reuse their form of expression.

-- -- Gwyneth always rights to someone. She envisions their attitude, posture, philosophy, ..... even the shoes they're wearing. She says it's all about composing and delivering the poem or story to the imagined person sitting across the table.

-- -- she says many of her products are not good enough. They are shelved and not delivered -- -- she says one advantage of being an author is that you don't do it in public. She adds however, that occasionally she will dust off a shelved piece modify it and transform it to a different setting -- -- and then it works.

-- -- she describes 'creative writing' as having no preordained or pre-known ending. It goes where it goes. She states that writing with a known end is more like reporting or exposition.

There is also much discussion about the lifestyle of a full-time author. Very interesting is the discussion of the next big hit -- -- the pressure that comes about after a very popular book to produce the next big hit -- -- and how in a very humble way she negotiates the pressure.

It is an hour long interview and, at least for me, very well worth the time. The subject here is writing but I would guess pretty much all the comments are equally true about painting.

Honor thy muse,

Tom

Synchronism --- Vivaldi Four Seasons

Here are two glorious synchronistic portrayals of the seasons --- one winter one spring.

Vivaldi Four Seasons ---- Winter

Vivaldi Four Seasons --- Spring

Thunderstorms

The wise adage 'don't play with fire' seems child's play when tampering with lightning. So here's  synchronism at its best --- the poem 'thunderstorms' as seen for real, together with sound. The male thunder and female lightning in a majestic and dangerous flirtation which transforms the landscape and creates its own music.

Tap here and witness the thunderstorm

The opposite

Hi Tom,

You have succinctly described a key attribute of the creative process. The ability to see/exploit/learn from understanding the opposite. A key part of the creative process is to know what to include. However, knowing what to exclude is also very much part of the creative process. It doesn't surprise me that you have this skilled honed.

If you extend this art concept into regular human life, this is exactly the human condition that most astounds me the most - even more than the getting dumber over time. It is not so much that people can't use opposites to be creative, but that they are clueless on the concept of opposite. Some psychologists would describe this as Emotional Intelligence - the ability to understand/comprehend the other persons perspective. However, it transcends relationships. People can't judge, can't analyze, can't rationalize, can't negotiate, they simply lock on there view. I suppose everything else is irrelevant. I am not sure what it is exactly that prevents them from projecting. It affects more than creativity; it affects the divorce rate, facebook faceoffs, international conflicts, etc.

Poetry of a different kind

Keith,

I am so impressed by how you very deliberately and carefully hone and perfect your subject before painting. I have previously noticed that your accompanying poetry is really really good --- so now I can see that your careful and elaborate planning has both your poetry and painting hit the bull's-eye.

I use poetry in the exact opposite way -- -- poetry captures my throwaway and byproduct thoughts. I have been so over trained as a mathematician and businessman that I dismiss and  disregard the nuances and feelings and milieu of my emotional life. Poetry is my attempt to recapture what an overly focused and overly trained intellect has come to ignore.

One of the great lessons in industry is that often the byproduct is the real treasure -- the steam byproduct of the fire in a steam engine provides the energy, the esprit de corps byproduct of a competitive team is often the essence of the team, the popular mandate byproduct of Obama's campaign is turning out to be his strength after his winning election....

Likewise the byproducts of my overly active mathematical imagination is more the essence of me then the mathematical result. And it was all discarded  --- until my fascination with poetry and the expression of these fleeting insights.

So the signature of my poetry is it's spontaneity, surprise, nuance .... for me it's a gift of the erstwhile unseen.

Tom

Life Without Stars - My thought process for Composition

I plan to have this painting done for our next meeting. I thought you might like to know my thought process.

I am finally thru my compositions and am ready to get this done.
I originally thought my composition would be about the Big Dipper and how it provides direction and perspective. However, I am not a sailor. Plenty of people have used its North Star for safe passage. However, I never have, so I realize I don't connect to it that way. For me, the big dipper is romantic. It is always there. It connects you to your past and future. It is a reliable friend.

Being Synchronism's newest fan, I am going to compose my painting with the story of the Great Bear (Ursa Major) being chased into the heavens. Now that is something much closer to me! Staying a steady course with the North Star is not me. That composition is best served for a sailor/painter. I am the farm boy/painter meandering thru life and the open stars.

Great Poem Susan!

I love poems that can transport me like this one.
Art/Poems should be about special things to you. However, I feel it is best art when it can create special things for others.

The tree of life, the poem of life

Susan, what an enrapturing poem. You beautifully use metaphor as a sneak attack -- -- when you convince the reader are you talking about a tree you unveil a wonderful surprise -- -- the direct personal meaning of the poem.

And it's meaning is all of painful, glorious, and beautifully true.

Another Seasonal Poem

Since we have been talking about seasons, here is a poem about the season of harvest, about how the pain in our lives later becomes part of the goodness we have to offer.

Harvest

Late summer, I pull a peach. The tree

lets it go with a quiet snap, and I know

to pick the others before they fall.

My arms tire from constant reaching;

I stop to see how the trunk has thickened.

It nearly hides a barbed wire coiled around it

by someone years ago -- I don’t know who, or why.

This year a few barbs show; next year, none:

the way wanting you disappeared but never left,

a memory surrounded by living, so firmly encased

that the sting comes as an unexpected gift

only when high winds cross this place.

I won’t try gouging it away. Wrapped in the rest

of me, it becomes, after all, part of the harvest.

JoAnne's blog

JoAnne,

Thank you for the very interesting pair of winter and spring stanzas. But more so I think your new blog on mathematics and poetry is absolutely wonderful -- -- and I highly recommend it to others all -- -- http://poetrywithmathematics.blogspot.com/. Everybody please take a look at JoAnne's blog, it's extremely well done and has fascinating topics about this synergy of poetry and mathematics.

It stimulated a topic high on all of our writing lists -- -- the blank page.

Synchronism

Thanks Joanne,

That oppresses, like the weight
Of cathedral tunes.

This is an example of Synchronism. Rather than objects, or colors or lines as in art, it ties poetic verses to a sensation in music. It is amazing how much you can feel in music.

Synchronism can also achieved in cinematography, like Ravels Bolero and Bo Derek.

Winter and Spring in Poetry

Previous posts with their poetic contrasts of winter with spring made me think of Emily Dickinson and I went in search of her poems online.  I found her complete collection at Bartleby.com  and offer here a pair of first-stanzas that I found there.  Both of these are in “Part Two:  Nature” of the Dickinson collection.

     LXXXII

There's a certain slant of light,  
On winter afternoons,  
That oppresses, like the weight  
Of cathedral tunes.  

     LXXXV

A light exists in spring    
  Not present on the year    
At any other period.    
  When March is scarcely here   

By the way, I have developed a poetry-math blog, “Intersections – Poetry with Mathematics,” that is available here.  I invite your comments and suggestions.      Thanks!    JoAnne 

Renoir Poem

My goal is a poem that intertwines Spring in a Park and Sisters. People create movies from a hit song, so this is the reverse. I will create a poem song, from a hit movie about two sisters on a bench in spring.

Here is a start...The rest will have to wait, so I can spend Spring with my Daughters.

That bench so frequent, so familia,
Raptured by petals and buds and sibs Renoir’s way;

Spring Twin - Two Sisters by Renoir

The first picture is an etching from James Tissot - "Walk in the Snow".
Of course this second picture is appropriately a Renior Painting - "Two sisters".

I am going to try my hand at a poem for this one. I think I can conjure up some rhyme and rythym. I was an identical twin boy, but allow me to extrapolate.

My winter Twin - per Tissot and Keats

Fancy
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn’s wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it:—thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment—hark!

first annual Artist Connection Spring Citation --- identical twin poems

Gang,

I wanted to post twin poems --- with photographs of the same scene, one winter and one spring, twin verse of winter and spring.

The view is my backyard overlooking the Tridelphia reservoir.

The project still unfinished, instead of just twins I wanted identical twin poems.  The winter poem should be rewritten for spring so that when put side-by-side photographs match up and so do the words.

The spring poem would start out with analogs to: winter's a thief, .....eg spring is summertime Santa Claus ..
 next stanza: spring analog to winter's a bully,...

I just finished putting a book together where pages 24 and 25 face each other with the poems 'winter' and 'spring' with the photographs side-by-side facing each other.  More on the book publishing later --- much to talk about and much to learn.

In any case may we all have a glorious and joyful spring -- -- if anyone wants to take up the challenge of the identical twin 'spring' poem they'll be awarded the first annual Artist Connection Spring Citation.

Cheers all,
Tom

Read your poem again Tom

I have to read a poem several times before I can feel it. You have some ominous verbs in your poem. Oddly, I would have guessed you were more somebody that is oblivious to the weather. I could picture you doing math theorems with a desk planted on a frozen lake.

Movements in Art

I am taking nominations for movements in Art. Have all the good movements been taken? I will pursue no movement until its time? How do you recognize a movement when you see one? I have read so much about movements, I sure wish I could be in a movement. The only movements we have today are political - change and tea-party movements. My opinion is that they suck. I want to live a movement like the impressionists. Am I living in a dream world?

I would like to see a movement away from buying paintings based on a color that matches the drapes. Would that be a movement? Even if that weren't a movement, I would really like to see that. It seems as if nobody has feelings, or rather that they would really rather just be entertained so to avoid feelings.

How about a movement where art is more collaborative, rather than a single artist?
Is that a good movement? Wouldn't emotion intensify if more than one person is involved? I believe we have seen this in the past with artists and their mistresses. However, what if art was truly collaborative? Golf does this with a "scramble" format. What if art had a scramble? People with different handicaps approach the bare canvas.

Spring

Spring


When sunshine feels warm,
  the winter blahs transform.
When dogwoods wear paisley-pink light skirts,

- with my Linda I want to flirt.
Spring's when days begin to linger long;
 a tarrying embrace is our song.
The magic of nature all around us;
 how we miss it in our blind fuss.

It's when hope rises again;
 youth renews, spirits enliven, love reigns,
when birds and bees pick it up again, the winter's chill forgotten,
 our fears turn misbegotten,
when just being suffices,
 in fact, exceeds the forced plan of our own devices.

Let me feel it, be part of it, exalt in its arrival and simplicity;
 and not be numbed by winter's worry demons with whom I have complicity.
Let me be reminded that the best in life is free: love, laughter, friends –
 when this is gone, life ends.
Let me be in tune with spring's moods;
 just as the animals, so simple yet more astute, pursue sex not grains for spring's foods.
Let me realize that hurt is only a winter season
– replaced by a loving spring where fear is blasphemy and treason.

Let me share this because of Linda, spring of my wintery life stroll,
 alignment of the seasons with my mate’s soul.

Let it last. Let my body and spirit have a spring of full measure,
 celebrating their temporary presence with Linda, my treasure.

Winter

Winter

Winter is a thief:

lite on light, terse on time, chilling cheer, hijacking hope

Winter is a bully:

cowardly cruel, crotchety cold, cripples cupid, clamoring cover

if sleep is death's second self

winter's the zodiac's purgatory

a forewarning of the coming dark abyss

a preview of the inexorable dark cold void

we start out with hopeful plans, enthusiasm for projects, enticing the muse

end up wanting to escape, muse muzzled, staring at walls

limp and lame 

winter days are eventless, empty, evacuated. Life

cheated, chiseled, cuckolded,

by the Winter God

the sun God is adored

darkness of night is abhorred

the cold is glum

our spirit goes numb

She hijacks our spirit, imagination, initiative in a cold freeze

and when she leaves

our spirit has to be gently gradually thawed out,

like a holiday turkey with freezer burn

our defrosted damaged daemon reemerges

a frost bitten version of its former self

Nice poem Tom! How did you pick up a different style for your poem?




FROSTY THE SNOWMAN

What a great story for children. It touches on the very complex question - if Snowmen die where do they go.

I had to get this Poem out before April Fools was over.

A Poem and a Riddle - Brewed by Cabin Fever

Here is a poem and a riddle.


BREWED BY A CABIN FEVER

It doesn’t get better than this, as the mercury grew.
A whole lot can happen, out of the blue.

Forsake the flakes and out of the darkness comes light.
Good things come to those who wait right?

This weekend is to be beautiful and some things get better given longer,
Would you ever say no to another?

Life Beckons, choose wisely.
As for me, It is miles away from ordinary.

You never forget your first girl,
Give him a right good hemmeling tonight awhirl.

Fresh. Smooth. Real. Its all here.
If I had wanted water, I would have asked for water for sure.

Relax on an equinox and be yourself for a while.
Sooner or later you will get it and smile.

Spring, it’s a bit gorgeous and dogwood.
It looks good, it tastes good, and by golly it does you good.