Greatest Hits Gallery--Laura M.

Combining ekphrasis and midrash, some poems focused on art and some on music, made up the heart of Laura M's portfolio. Two of her pieces are sonnets, formally adept yet playful and devout, on panels from the Ghiberti Florentine baptistry doors we viewed earlier in the fall at the Chicago Art Institute.

Meditation I: On Ghiberti’s Creation Panel, Front and Back

I saw Ghiberti form a god-like face,
And on the hidden back imprint his thumb;
His wax seemed bubbled, lumped, crude—all its sum
Could only hint at some forthcoming grace.
And when he broke the bronze from its clay case,
He turned aside to make more tools; before
He purified with heat the lustrous ore,
His Maker’s face the lesser sculptor chased.
That higher Sculptor needed no bronze pools—
No chisel but His breath for chasing tools;
A Word was metal fit for the world’s panels,
And for its sprues—affixed as saving channels
Through which His molten grace could freely run—
He crossed upon its back His only Son.



Meditation II: Adam and Eve on the Creation Panel

He paints the smaragdine new world with gold;
Our vitiated eyes must have a screen
To see the angels’ song-tied gaze—the cold
Bronze shields the loss of Eden’s perfect scene.
The snake is captive, bound in low relief,
So we, imprisoned viewers, may keep free
From memory of fear and sudden grief
That our lives could be strangled, like that tree.
But then—the master sculptor lost control!
His balance tilts—a host of weeping wings
Cascades in flood from heaven’s cut-glass bowl;
And through the downpour Michael’s sad fist swings.
From that deluge no fallen frame can hide,
Though torn leaves show that—goodness knows—we tried.

And the last few of these DJPH poems for now

Poem for David Hooker—Rachel A.

You have to make your inspiration up;
my art's a job, like any other craft.
Collage-like sculpture, simple lovely cup,
I shape them both, draft after thumb-worn draft,
from clay bricks, in the place of pen and book.
Back in my undergrad days I'd have laughed
to see the way my work would one day look:
wake early, feed the children, sit and stare
at things for half an hour. I'd have took
offense if you'd described my present hair,
my quiet clothes. smudged now with dust, not ink.
Today I'll shave a centimeter there,
here dab a touch of blue. Might do, I think.
Poetry stands just on pottery's brink—
one claw held back, one cross taken back up.


In His Studio--Laura M.

He has a smallish set of wings—
envisioned in a plaster mold—
which don’t belong to anything.
No sinew’d shoulders, nothing—
an absence
of wings.

Is there in mold-land, hid somewhere,
a waiting plaster angel? Will
he find it, claying spare to spare—
a space of wings—raw, cased-in air—
the absence—
of angel?


One Thousand Pounds of Clay—Charis T.

A line is drawn,
Collage created, paint painted
Before the one-thousand pounds
Of clay hits
The concrete floor
Or table.

Carton blue,
And red hues
Eyes of a dog,
A preying mantis
Mantled on the table.

The gray clay
Now portrays
A sarcastic smile
A solemn cry
And the KKK’s
Pinkish eyes

Chaos weaved
In and out
The leg’s about
A foot long
And bends on an arm,
A hand holding a gun.




On Visiting David Hooker’s Studio--Marjorie H.

forget the wheel throwing
– not the pot but –
itself out the window.
process is slow and nothing
like Mr. Rogers concept
– of the art of creating art –
we learned. Instead it is full
of sitting and staring at
– but not sleeping on –
a Britney Spears pillow
and Jesus the son of the Virgin
combine into Britney
– not Madonna –
like a virgin and Jesus her son.