Last week's poem was inspired by a painting that showed none of the details of Nicolas Tarkhoff's works that originally attracted me to him--cats, his family, and the delightful feeling of being at home. Today's picture displays all of it!
Maybe it isn't recommended
that one make art at home,
but, what more is needed
than the ever-present chaos
of wife and child, cat, kitten,
beetroot, mangelwurzel,
and pumpkin to inspire?
Color, texture, line, shape,
form, value, and space.
Is it not all here? These
elements, long taught in
academies, are here--
here, where I breathe them.
Where I eat and sleep them.
With the addition of love,
how can I not make art?
I recently came upon mention of someone writing cherita. I had never heard of a cherita and so, I went looking to learn more. (Cherita is pronounced CHAIR-rita, it is both singular and plural, and, it put me in mind of cherries, thus the photo.)
It turns out that a cherita is an unrhymed, untitled, poem that tells a story in 3 verses. Verse 1 is one line, verse 2 is two lines, verse 3 is three lines. Click here for more on the form and examples. The best way to learn about any form is to read examples.
I figured I'd give the cherita a try. I realize I will have to do a lot more reading before I feel confident I've got it right, but this is a start:
first spring day
with the window open
the sound of helicopters
her keyboard clicks
in counterpoint
...searching
project winds down
three days for review
then off it goes
not nearly enough
carbs in the cupboard
to see me through
face still flushed
a resumé book disappears
from the library
she earns 79 cents
to HIS dollar--
they share an office
This is the place for day five of the NPM 2017 Progressive Poem. We're off to a great start with these four lines: (Supplied by Heidi, Tabatha, Dori, and Michelle.)
I'm fidget, friction, ragged edges—
I sprout stories that frazzle-dazzle,
stories of castles, of fires that crackle,
with dragonwords that smoke and sizzle.
But edges, sometimes, need sandpaper...
We all have permission to take a breath. Sometimes there's too much frazzle in the dazzle. Kat's up next. Will she sizzle or will she dawdle? No matter which way she takes the poem, it's sure to be fun! Twenty-five days from now we may have gone to infinity and beyond, and back again.
Here's who our peripatetic poem will be visiting during the month of April:
Today is the first of four National Poetry Month ekphrastic poems inspired by the art of Nicolas Tarkhoff (1871-1930). Tarkhoff was a Russian artist who spent the second half of his life in France. Surprisingly I didn't find an entry for Tarkhoff in the English language version of Wikipedia. I found a bit at the Association Les Amis de Nicolas Tarkhoff. But, I have resorted to using my poetic license and have imagined a life for the painter based on his art.
I first discovered his work when doing a search on The Athenaeum website looking for pictures of cats. I found that Tarkhoff painted many pictures of his wife and children, cats, and pumpkins. Of the 128 of his works on The Athenaeum site, very few are dark in feeling. His love of family is clearing evident and the fact that he obviously liked cats makes him an artist worth exploring! The pumpkins were a unexpected surprise. (Find a haiku sequence I wrote based on his 1909 painting "Cats by the Window," here.)
I imagine Tarkoff may have sold his Paris paintings to tourists. I also imagine climbing to the roof of Notre Dame, with art supplies, if only a pencil and sketch pad, would not have been undertaken lightly! (That's probably projecting since I have a healthy fear of heights.) I'm sure Tarkhoff would have preferred painting pictures to please himself, but a man in those days had to make a living for himself and his family.
We are the fantastic
monsters and men
who are relegated
to role of protector.
Not by choice do we
climb to the heights.
Not by choice do we
swallow our fears.
Our inner fortitude
is only as strong as
our God-given talent,
but love sustains us.
The photo of Notre Dame doesn't give the kind of perilous view I think a gargoyle painter would have been faced with. This one below, circa 1860, gives a view closer to one I imagine.
