Month: July 2011

They Will Take My Island

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Came across this cool blog by Paul Vermeersch, where he has invited a number of poets to respond to a work of art by Armenian-born painter Arshile Gorky called “They Will Take My Island.”  Each poem on the blog shares that same title and takes off from there in a kind of group ekphrasis (a dramatic or poetic description of a visual artwork.) I like that he chose a piece which is fairly abstract, offering a wide possibility of interpretation, but the evocative title has enough charge to bring out some great poems.

Here is the original poem by Vermeersch and below is another by Adam Sol. I met Adam in Toronto and just got his Jeremiah, Ohio in the mail and am super excited about it.

They Will Take My Island

by Adam Sol

You taught me language, and my profit on’t
            Is I know how to curse.

They will take my island
if I don’t scorch it to the bones, though
to speak truly,

I did not know it was an island
until they said so.
I thought it was the world.

The river-fish would drift
into my clasp and I would gnaw
on their flesh while the gills still

gasped.  It had edges and pleasures
and dangers.
What more is a world?

(Read the full poem here)

Gillian Welch’s April the 14th

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A while ago, a writing group I am part of, gave ourselves the assignment of making a mix-cd of “writerly” songs. I included in my mix, this song by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, two of my favorite songwriters.  I wrote a bit about what I found interesting about the song.  I’m seeing her tonight at the Vancouver Folk Festival so I thought I’d share what I had written.

lyrics here
What could be a sad little song about wandering around a city and catching an Idaho punk band play some small fruitless show, is lifted into a much larger and deeper context by what frames it. On April the 14th, 1865, Abraham Lincoln (The Great Emancipator) was assassinated. On that same date in 1912, the Titanic struck an iceberg. And in 1935 (April 14th again) one of the worst dust bowl storms (Black Sunday) ever sent residents (“Okies” from Oklahoma) fleeing for other areas. It’s hard to see how these events relate to this  story about seeing a punk show, other than it possibly occurring on that same date too. There are other connections I can make…but that it would just be my personal connections; the song generously allows a lot of space for that.

Gillian places herself very much in an old-timey folk tradition and makes the most of it within her lyrics by referencing the work of older musicians and historical events from different times. As well, many phrases connect to other songs on the album: “the staggers and the jags” appears in the album’s sprawling closer “I Dream A Highway”, and “I wish I played in a rock n’ roll band”  are from “I Want to Sing that Rock N’ Roll.” I love that idea of stitching songs on a album together this way and wish more songwriters did it.

Other trivia: Casey Jones was a train driver who famously saved the lives of many passengers by remaining on his train as it crashed in order to slow it down, thus killing himself. He has been referenced in plenty of songs. The line “God Moves on the Water” comes from the old song by Blind Willie Johnson, which is about the Titanic.

the writer at work #1

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Bored at a slow work day I arrange some of the left-over wedding flowers in the lunch room. I set them inside a pitcher of water and then mop the floor.  I do not think hard about flower arranging, but it looks fine to me, they’re beautiful enough, you can’t go too wrong. One might think that I’m building poems in my head while I do my duties, but most of the time I’m not thinking about very much.  Mostly just daydream mundane thoughts, or just pay attention to the task and any small satisfaction I receive from it.  The gleam of a clean counter top or opening a new garbage bag with that quick arm motion that forces air into it. I read on my break more often than write. Work-gloves that have my name on them. Someone left a David Sedaris book on a shelf that has now become an unofficial ‘free-book’ shelf and I’m reading that. While I was taking a “Writing for Children” class I would read a couple books a day from the Montessori classroom that is part of the building, but I’ve read most all of them now.

A class recently went to Grouse Mountain as a field trip and they put these up on the wall:


(I’ve been there once, and it was my favorite thing too)