Visual Poetry

January 28, 2009

“Elevated Findings” by Kip DeedsPosted by

KIP DEEDS: “‘Walden, Sprawl, and All’ began with a drawing of a cabin, inspired in part by my own experience of cabin-living in Michigan. Although this drawing went unresolved for two years, I began doing watercolor tests on the paper in the summer of 2007. By autumn I was developing a sprawling urban landscape around the cabin, in contrast to the more placid central image. The text adds commentary to the inevitable contrast between the quiet, solitary life and the pervasiveness of so-called modern progress. ‘Elevated Findings’ began as a study of a piece of furniture in the poet Janée J. Baugher’s Seattle home. On tiers of shelves is an arrangement of office supplies and knick-knacks. Among these items I added some of my own objects. The text in the scroll tells a story and presents a tour through the shelves and curiosities.”

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—from Rattle #29, Summer 2008
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January 21, 2009

“Boy w/ Joker” by Krista FranklinPosted by

Krista Franklin: “At the heart of my collages is a deep concern for creating complex and interrogative images, dream worlds and psychic landscapes. Deeply inspired by American popular culture and histories, as well as by the frenetic glamour of music videos and magazines, I create my collages in much the same way a hiphop producer creates a beat: through a process comparable to ‘sampling.’ Using a variety of medium—paint, handmade paper, playing cards, old photographs, receipts—I create new visions and totems wherein image is in dialogue with words (sometimes prominent, sometimes obscured), and the complexities of histories are evoked through a purposeful layering.” (web)

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–from Rattle #29, Summer 2008
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January 18, 2009

“Strip Taze” by David AlpaughPosted by

DAVID ALPAUGH: “I’m attracted to poetry by its thrilling language—the electricity generated by the A & B of metaphor ‘running beautiful together.’ Visual poetry increases the voltage, counterpointing the poem’s words with a third dimension that commands the eye and affords the complex pleasure of a triple-read. In ‘Strip Taze’ the text begs a luridly posed photo of a tazer gun to reveal the primitive, naked violence it so seductively tries to obscure via the ‘cheesecake’ of 21st century technology. There will be blood! (Part of the fun was getting the final word ‘flow’ to end up on that red button.)”

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—from Rattle #29, Summer 2008
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January 16, 2009

“Walden, Sprawl and All” by Kip DeedsPosted by

KIP DEEDS: “‘Walden, Sprawl, and All’ began with a drawing of a cabin, inspired in part by my own experience of cabin-living in Michigan. Although this drawing went unresolved for two years, I began doing watercolor tests on the paper in the summer of 2007. By autumn I was developing a sprawling urban landscape around the cabin, in contrast to the more placid central image. The text adds commentary to the inevitable contrast between the quiet, solitary life and the pervasiveness of so-called modern progress. ‘Elevated Findings’ began as a study of a piece of furniture in the poet Janée J. Baugher’s Seattle home. On tiers of shelves is an arrangement of office supplies and knick-knacks. Among these items I added some of my own objects. The text in the scroll tells a story and presents a tour through the shelves and curiosities.”

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—from Rattle #29, Summer 2008
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January 13, 2009

“Playground” by Dianne Carroll Burdick & Linda Nemec FosterPosted by

DIANNE CARROLL BURDICK: “I photographed all the images with black & white film and printed all images on fiber-base black & white paper. When the print is dry, I treat the paper with an oil-base solvent and color the image with colored pencils. ‘Playground’ was photographed at my dad’s ranch in Ukiah, California. Strangely enough, Ukiah spelled backwards is haiku. My dad, Bruce Carroll, had 200 acres called Round Mountain, and when I would visit, I would always twirl near the spot that this photograph was taken, to enjoy the vast beauty of the land.”

LINDA NEMEC FOSTER: “Throughout my writing career, I have had a deep interest in collaborating with others. In 1998 Dianne Carroll Burdick asked me to write poems in response to her photography for a collaborative art/poetry exhibit called ‘The Good Earth.’ I composed haiku—the traditional form created by Japanese poets over 500 years ago. Then, as now, haiku were written in response to the natural world: the human reaction to the landscape that we are a part of, yet separate from. Ultimately, this project was not only about the landscapes of images and words, but about ourselves: how each of us reflects the universe that the world contains.”

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Playground by Dianne Carroll Burdick

PLAYGROUND

She wants to run, twirl
Follow the path all the way
To her past: those trees

—from Rattle #29, Summer 2008
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January 11, 2009

“I Am Anything” by Ruth BavettaPosted by

RUTH BAVETTA: “I’ve been a visual artist longer than I’ve been a poet. For years I tried to find a way to integrate my art and my words. It wasn’t until 2005 that they came together when I started to work on the pages of old books, mostly with watercolors and inks, carving poems from the text that I found there.” (website)

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I Am Anything

—from Rattle #29, Summer 2008
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January 9, 2009

“To Be Alive” by Gregory Orr and Trisha OrrPosted by

Gregory Orr & Trisha Orr

TO BE ALIVE

—from Rattle #29, Summer 2008
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Trisha Orr: “These paintings were generated in response to an invitation to collaborate with my husband, the poet Gregory Orr, for an exhibit entitled ‘Love Letter Invitational’ at the Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, Virginia. The exhibit consisted of collaborative works done by writers and artists on the subject of ‘love.’ Greg and I had been asked to work in collaboration twice before, and each time he’d written poems based on my still life paintings. This time, we decided to reverse the process, so I would make paintings in response to his poems. I decided to incorporate the text of the poem or portions of the text into the painting. I used loosely constructed grids and tried to find the color and light and weight of the words in each poem. I wanted the language to be legible, but I reconfigured the line breaks to make compositions that were visually balanced. The texts of the paintings come from Greg’s two most recent books, Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved and How Beautiful the Beloved.”

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