You’re Invited, lang•widge, March 27, 2010, Gallery Neptune in Bethesda, Maryland.
Poetry is a lot like music. Music evokes visual images; visual art can stimulate poems. Read that backwards and it’s true that way, too.
Last March, while visiting a friend in DC, I had the opportunity to experience all three — music, my friend’s paintings, and a spontaneous poetry happening — mixed together for one entertaining evening. The event: lang•widge. The setting: Gallery Neptune in Bethesda, Maryland.
My friend, artist Freya Grand, paints landscapes. Not your ordinary landscapes. Landscapes filtered through Freya’s vision and open to interaction with the viewer. In Freya’s words, “Painting landscape begins as an internal process. As in abstraction, forms transmit a mysterious secret life, exert a presence.”
Presence was abundant on March 27 at Gallery Neptune, even before the rest of the evening’s events unfolded. I’ve always had my own strong responses to Freya’s work, partly because I’ve traveled with her to some of the locations she later painted. More because her work is emotional, full of motion and light. Like me, the lang•widge participants responded in their own unique ways.
So here’s how it went: A few weeks before lang•widge, Freya and gallery owner Elyse Harrison asked jazz musician Steven Rogers to preview the paintings and compose short pieces of music in response. Once everyone had had a chance to walk around and see all the paintings (munch on cheese and crackers, drink wine), we were asked to gather in front of a podium and listen to a short poetry reading by Charlie Jensen, poet and director of The Writer’s Center in Bethesda, and the poet, Reb Livingston.
Works by Freya Grand, Rock at Low Tide, 48″ x 60″, 2008, Burning Fields, 30″ x 30″, 2009, Cotopaxi, 48″ x 60″, 2006, and Fog, Benbulben, 30″ x30″, 2010, paintings © 2006-2010 by Freya Grand. All rights reserved.
Suitably warmed-up, we were each given a clipboard, a few sheets of paper, and a pencil. As Steven Rogers’ techno-jazz music played, we looked at the paintings again and quickly jotted down short lines. Whatever came to mind.
I was surprised by how much I liked the music. I am not a big jazz fan, but looking at Freya’s work and listening to this weird contemporary music, I found myself enjoying the way the visual and musical bits blended together. Whatever it was I wrote in response — I didn’t preserve any of it — was full of the light and movement I’ve always seen in my friend’s work. Hope, change, powerful natural forces, awe, wonder.
When the four short pieces of music had finished, we reassembled in front of the podium. Volunteers did most of the reading, but first Charlie Jensen and Reb Livingston demonstrated the technique. They chose two from a diverse collection of colored dice. The number rolled determined the number of pieces of paper to be read together to create a spontaneous poem.
The results were surprising, to say the least. Where I had seen light and life, others had seen darkness and death, despair and violence. Sexuality. New life forms. Being lost, being found. Memories of blankets, clouds, and chaos.
During lang•widge, poets Charles Jensen and Reb Livingston explain the process, draw poem pieces, then read the resulting poetry, photos © 2010 by Judith Ford. All rights reserved.
Here are some of my favorite lines:
smiley in foam, red glee
his daughter in a box, pushed out to sea
I’ve made a mistake coming here
I’ll never eat butter cream frosting again
When my husband, Chris, who loves to perform for an audience, volunteered, things got even stranger. He happened to pick a very long series of lines that were written in five different languages. Chris speaks nothing but English. His courageous attempts to pronounce Spanish, Italian, French, German, and, I think, Swedish, were sidesplitting.
Afterward Chris sought out the writer of those lines, and, yes, she did speak all those languages. She told Chris he’d done a pretty good job at guessing the pronunciations.
I sought out Freya. “Did you realize how much pain and despair was hiding in your paintings?” I asked. Freya is not prone to darkness or despair. She told me she was actually more surprised by the butter cream frosting than the pain. She said something like, “People project into my work whatever is up for them at the present moment.”
Not sure about that butter cream.
Freya Grand and Chris Ford, photo ©
2010 by Judith Ford. All rights reserved.
So here’s an idea: How about trying a little mini da-da poetry writing sans Steven Rogers’ music? Take a look at any of the Freya Grand paintings in this post (or visit her website). Pick out a piece of music you currently like a lot. While the music plays, quickly, without much thought, jot down five (or so) lines or phrases.
Email them to me at pinkeggs@gmail.com. After two weeks or so (about August 9) I’ll randomly pick out lines, type them in the order I’ve picked, and post them here in the comments section. Let’s see what we come up with.
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Here are two poems created during the lang•widge event; these are also posted on The Writer’s Center website.
1.
this is reversal
clouds coming up through earth’s crust
all my orange drizzles around in dust
I fly over this, I needn’t touch down
Earth is melting
manna comes down
my wings are lifted by
heat from the ground
Lift off!
Earth Burnt and Fractured
Evaporated Anger
Unexpressed Blindness
earth’s breath
greeny pastures of ooze
trudging uphill I see my shadow and a whale
I’m near a synthetic ocean
one that’s flat and even dry
cured epoxy cement
fake lily sky
but here’s where I swim
and here’s where I’ll die
your piano carries me anywhere
you play
standing stones
scottish shore
volcanic mist
walk to the top edge
as above, so below
coolness rising
You and me
never the same
mountain ranges between us
ocean depths……storms
air that we breathe
the only media
that unites
I lived there so long the ocean was like a person to me.
A giant meatball rolling towards its destiny.
2.
East coast sunsets
are less brilliant
but the sand between my toes
feels more like home.
Scary golf course littered laced
and smoking with traps sandy
silken tofu nowhere is there a
flag or a hole to crawl into
Dark fog charcoal wall
surrounding me give me grass
but it wriggles this grass
maybe the rocks will protect me
marshmallow antlers and steamy pea soup
There’s a smiley
in the foam
red glee
misty canyon aerie wheat
volcanic atmosphere rock strewn beach
geyser rivulets
yves tanguy
shadows
cliff hanger
steam
heat
his daughter in a box, pushed out to sea
wash of creation
thrum
pure thin air
Moses parts a red and vanillas sea
A single, persistent surfer.
I’d made a mistake coming here.
bleed
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Judith Ford is a psychotherapist and writer who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She was red Ravine’s very first guest writer, with her 25 Reasons I Write post. Judith’s other pieces on red Ravine include Mystery E.R., I Write Because, and PRACTICE – Door – 20min.
You’re on, Jude. Look for my lines coming your way in the next week. Sounds like a great time for everyone who attended.
I was struck by the line, “I made a mistake by coming here.” I wonder what the person meant. Did the event cause discomfort for the viewer? Did the person not like what was happening? Aside from those things, the person participated in the poetry write so something drew them in.
Again, loved the post and I’m lookin’ for music now.
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Great post. Glad to have a chance to see her work. Reminds me of my photographs–the way I look at nature as geometric shapes and forms. I love jazz. Wish I had been there. Sounds like a wonderful fusion.
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I love the blending of all these art forms. I kept thinking (while reading your piece) about the vital role art (music, poetry) plays in our lives.
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You know what I loved about lang-widge, Jude, is the idea of making something together through a shared process but not a shared output. So let me explain.
I’ve done collaborative writing with other writers where we can see what the other has written. We’ve done “exquisite corpse” [LINK], for example, where one person adds on to what another has written, but the person adding on can see what came before and riff off of that writing.
With lang-widge, you all had a common set of inspirations — the paintings and the music — but the resulting poems were made from lines that had no other relation to one another.
It’s a process that fascinates me. I like thinking about that when I read the poems, and thinking about how the music was also a certain type of poetry inspired by the paintings, just as the lines of writing were.
It’s just delightful–the kind of thing that gets me jazzed, because I love the process so much.
Wanted to also say that the paintings are gorgeous. I see energy and movement in them, but I also see turbulence. It strikes me as natural turbulence–the kind that nature creates. A good storm, for example. I can’t wait to see what comes out when I sit and listen to music as I write.
And I’m thinking about an on-going theme that QM and I have, about how hard it is to write and listen to music. Will be interesting to see how having all these senses engaged — ears, eyes, hand (wild mind) — will feel.
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Bob – got your lines. You are the first contributor. I look forward to seeing what we all come up with.
Maureen , you would have so enjoyed this event. I wish you’d been there, too.
Each kind of art has much to offer, I think, to each other art form. I mean, the plays and movies I see, the ones that touch me deeply, blend into my my writing.
Freya’s art has always touched me and I’m certain the turbulence (that Roma mentions) is in some of my writing as it is in her paintings. Inspiration – could have been another name for this event. I found it delightful, too.
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wanted to add… to the ongoing theme of listening to music while writing… I always listen to music while writing. Feels like companionship on the otherwise solo journey.
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Enjoyed reading you Jude (as always) and I will probably pitch in. I almost never listen to music while writing and now you’ve got me thinking why. I do like listening to music while I’m working (on boring technical documents). Not sure why but I’m musing it over.
I also enjoyed the paintings! Thanks for sharing.
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Jude, you captured the evening of art, poetry, and music beautifully in this piece. I am drawn to the last two of Freya’s paintings — Cotopaxi and Fog, Benbulben. The play of light, texture of the brush strokes.
What she said about projection struck me, too. “People project into my work whatever is up for them at the present moment.” I think that is also true of music. Especially music that reminds us of the past or sticks with us through time.
It will be fun to take you up on your challenge and see what the resulting poetry piece is that emerges.
“There’s a smiley
in the foam
red glee”
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Oh, about writing and music. I like it completely silent when I write. But I do listen to music when I’m doing haiku sometimes. And like having extraneous sound around when I edit and work on photographs. So, for me, the visual and music go together nicely. Not sure if I could do any serious writing with music on the the background. I get distracted. It seems like with on the spot poetry, music would edge the words along to a completely different place. I’m inspired to try this and see what happens.
I remember hearing Stephen King speak last year at the Fitzgerald and he talked about how he loves to edit his work to heavy metal music. It really got me thinking — could I actually edit writing to rock and roll. I really don’t know. When I edit and revise, I do a lot of reading out loud. How would the music play into that? I do notice that some people are tuned into the auditory more than others. I am more visual. I know people who are more auditory. It’s fascinating to think and wonder where we learned that or who it came from.
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Neola – I’m looking forward to your contribution to the jointly created poem.
Re: music and writing – like QM, I am way more visual than auditory, despite my love of just about all styles of music. When I write, I focus on the screen or the paper and the music is just there as a container, a solace, a something to hang onto kind of like a guide rope that you hold when you go deep into a cave and need to be able to find your way back out. Instrumental pieces or songs in French or Italian or Latin seem to work best for me.
But some days, blues or alternative rock suit me better. Whatever the music, it supports the writing, rather than inspiring it. Or at least I think that’s true. It might be that unconsciously it’s inserting itself into the words, but I don’t think so.
Re: Fog, Benbulben – I went to Ireland last year with Freya and her sister, Naomi, both good friends of mine. Benbulben loomed over the bay where our stone cottage was. This was Yeats’s stomping grounds. Benbulben pops up in a number of his poems.
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Good poems.
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United World Poets – curious. Who are you? Would you tell us something about your organization?
Thanks for stopping by!
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Okay all you Red Raviners! One week left to send me your short lines of poetry so we can construct our own group piece.
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[…] Ravine guest writer Judith Ford, and modified from an event she attended and describes in the post lang•widge. Guests at that event, which was held this past March in Bethesda, Maryland, was an “evening […]
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[…] guest writer, with the piece 25 Reasons I Write. Judith’s other pieces on red Ravine include lang•widge, Mystery E.R., I Write Because, and PRACTICE – Door – 20min. Spring Cleaning is based on a 15 […]
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