Linda Gregg wrote a great essay about the craft of poetry. It's called "The Art of Finding," and it can be found on the website, www.poets.org. She teaches poetry where she's "astonished...to find how many poets are nearly blind to the physical world." She makes her students keep a journal of things they have seen. She describes that in the beginning of this exercise, her students see in three ways: "artistically, deliberately, or not at all." Eventually, her students start to simply put down what they observe. The stark descriptions are quite lovely, and possess more meaning than flowery metaphors.
She concludes her essay with this last statement: "The art of finding in poetry is the art of marrying the sacred to the world, the invisible to the human." I think you could apply those words to any of the arts: painting, writing, photography, sculpture, etc.
Anyway, I'm trying to start my own journal of seen things. The three things listed below were observed late afternoon. I exited my workplace and entered a very green and damp world. It had rained earlier, and that delicious earth smell was everywhere.
- dirt kicked up against roots
- one purple tree among three green ones
- long ropes of black braided cables
I spent most of today, Thursday, inside finishing La-La's numerical floor. And, I created a fish as an homage to Louise Bourgeois. There's actually two references to Bourgeois in La-La's house. The first one has already been displayed.
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