Sensuous Physicality

While doing chores this evening, I continued watching an iTunes U video on Van Gogh from an Art Historian at the Otis College of Art and Design.  The painting that caused me to jot down a few words here is 'Wheat Fields with Cypresses' from 1889, and just prior to that in the video, 'Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape' also 1889.  The year before Van Gogh wrote to his brother saying he wanted to produce paintings that presented 'symbolic language in colour alone"

These paintings and ideas, especially 'Olive Trees in a Mountainous Landscape' seemed to match how I write poetry. In my case, I attempt to present images, textures, sound, touch in words.  My words most often reject narrative, though not always, and attempt to induce sensations in the reader or speaker. For example I would love to write a poem to go with 'Olive Trees' but of course dare not given the evils of copyright.  In the following slide in this presentation, it was not so much the painting 'Wheat Fields' as the insert on that slide showing Van Gogh's luscious, sensuous brush strokes, that moved me.  Here the unnamed art historian used the phrase 'sensuous physicality'. I would say I attempt 'sensuous physicality' in my poetry.

Thursday

ee cummings

I was looking around fruitlessly this morning for a quote that vanished from my desktop. The quote said something to the effect that a writer who seeks the perfect time and place to write will write nothing. I couldn't find the quote, but in my search I did find this little 2013 article on ee cummings:

HOW TO WRITE POETRY: FIVE PIECES OF ADVICE FROM E.E. CUMMINGS

So two thought streams are on the go now.  Secondly, I did not consciously imitate ee cummings, though I am cut from the same cloth; I am part of the 101 plots of poetry and share this with him.  I don't like to give advice on writing.  I do not expect ever to be asked!  But if I were asked, I would say only:  'Write!"  and leave it at that.  Nonetheless, the article above is interesting, though I would have loved to see an ee cummings poem on the article!

Now firstly:  I am determined that my writing will be done in the morning. This is the time of day when my mind works best.  Afternoons are for naps, reading, teaching.  Yet morning is also the time of day when I have most of my chores to do. Today, I set up my nicely portable MacBook Air on part of the kitchen counter and wrote in between chores. It worked! So, author whose name I cannot recall who told me that a writer writes whereever and whenever, thank you!

Write!