[New-Poetry] Fwd: Poet of the Month or Poetry versus Painting

[Anny Ballardini]

oh well, you say it won't get mad...

From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 10:45 PM


> Yeah, but there's not the same kind of obligation to that particular tree, 
> and the tree won't get mad if you don't meet its standards. The volume and 
> credibility and shades of light come from a different place.
>
> Anny Ballardini wrote:
>> Thank you Tad. I agree with the non-thinking aspect, not specifically in 
>> painting. I just picked up crochet, and yes, that was not to think. But 
>> even with crochet you have to think if you want to make something, so I 
>> just worked straight through, a long narrow senseless stripe.
>>
>> And yes, with portraits you have to apply your self, but also with trees, 
>> and leaves (ah how difficult those leaves) to give them volume and 
>> credibility and shades and light... My poor poor head, if only I had a 
>> spare one to use once in a while, :-)
>>
>> From: "TheOldMole" <Opus40-01 at opus40.org>
>> Sent: Thursday, December 13, 2007 12:56 AM
>>
>>
>>> I always thought, until I started doing it, that painting was much 
>>> easier, because you didn't have to come up with a subject -- you could 
>>> just go find a tree, or a nude, or the dishes in your sink, and start 
>>> painting. And actually I still do think that, to some extent.
>>>
>>> But I'd mostly take issue with Mr. Clare Rossini on the question of just 
>>> coming out and saying what you mean. I go along with whoever said if 
>>> know what you want to say, it's by definition not worth saying. And if 
>>> it was me that said that, then I go along with me.
>>>
>>> When I draw or paint, I do it with my hand and eye -- I try to engage my 
>>> conscious mind in the process as little as possible. That's why, even 
>>> though I've done all those poetry portraits, I'm never really happy 
>>> doing portraits, because you have to think -- what does this person 
>>> really look like? What do I have to do to capture that?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Anny Ballardini wrote:
>>>> What does Tad Richards think, and what do I think, or other people who 
>>>> try or tried to master both?
>>>> "My husband is a painter, and he often says he envies poets—“You guys 
>>>> can just come out and say what you mean,” he says. Oh, honey! Mine has 
>>>> been a long abidance with words, and I still feel the frustration of 
>>>> how often they come up short. There’s this diffuse 
>>>> image-thought-energy-emotion nebula floating around in the head, with 
>>>> patches of darkness and quivers of light. And on the page, draft after 
>>>> draft after draft, all taking stabs at getting it down, much less 
>>>> getting it right. The writing process is a long interior conversation, 
>>>> with all parts of the self, and it dwindles at times to a 
>>>> self-interrogation, without the strobes. What comes out of all this? 
>>>> Sometimes pitifully little. Death, especially, exposes the limitations 
>>>> of language. Every funeral or memorial service I’ve been to has made me 
>>>> aware that language, like some kind of old-fashioned, fussy wallpaper, 
>>>> merely covers over all the bumps and crevasses. On the other hand, 
>>>> without hymns or homilies or poems, how would we deal with the rotten 
>>>> luck of our mortality? Let’s face it, after awhile, the silence gets to 
>>>> you."
>>>> Clare Rossini
>>>>
>>>>     ----- Original Message -----
>>>>     *From:* jforjames at aol.com <mailto:jforjames at aol.com>
>>>>     *To:* new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
>>>> <mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>>>>     *Sent:* Wednesday, December 12, 2007 8:45 PM
>>>>     *Subject:* [New-Poetry] Fwd: Poet of the Month
>>>>
>>>>     I'll top David's Verse Daily pick. Someone I know is Poet of the
>>>>     Month...
>>>>     http://poetrynet.org/month/index.htm.
>>>>     Clare Rossini
>>>>
-- 
> Tad Richards
> http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
> http://opusforty.blogspot.com/
>
> The moral is this: in American verse,
> The better you are, the pay is worse.
>  --Corey Ford