Visual Art That Speaks

I was thinking some of my random rambling thoughts when my brain asked why schools offer a MFA (Master of Fine Arts) in writing. Writing isn’t artistic, unless it’s calligraphy or something. Of course I was staring at page of my chicken scratch scrap handwriting at the time. Fortunately that idea didn’t survive very long. Because, in so many ways, yes: writing is art.

The first flaw in my brain fart was that art has to be something pretty. Not all art is pretty. Some art is sad, scary, shocking, confusing and decidedly not pretty. The only words that can define art for me are creative and expression. Art is creative expression. Writing is creative expression. So writing is art. Ding!

Now the interesting thing is, writing is art in so many ways. Yes there’s the creative expression that is inherent in writing – because you are taking your thoughts and turning them into words on paper, like a musician turning emotions into music, usually so that someone else can understand you. Writers extract knowledge from their minds in that painful non-surgical procedure of getting it down on paper. Writers build worlds on white backgrounds. The very basis of writing is creative expression – art. But there are other ways writing is art too.

The very building blocks of the words themselves can be a form of visual art. Calligraphy is dedicated to making words look “pretty” but there are so many other forms of written art as well. Look at the writing of any other language that does not use the same Latin/Roman letters we’re accustomed to in English. Writing like Arabic and Kanji, Nepalese scripts look like art to me because they are unfamiliar, intriguing, enigmatic and yes, pretty. But does the fact I am accustomed to seeing written English, make it any less artistic a script? I’ve been desensitized to the most amazing thing about the written word. Writing is visual art that speaks.

One of the many ways it speaks is in autobiography. Handwriting can tell us a lot about a writer. Just the way we put pen to paper is autobiographical. When you look at a page full of flowing words, no scratches, you see the writer’s confidence and preparation. When you see neat cursive or machine-like uniformity in a person’s print it would not be farfetched to think that the person is meticulous. When you see the scribbles, scrawls and scratches of a mind at war with itself, uncertain, you feel the writer’s torment. Handwriting is such a reliable form of self expression that there are analysts who make a living doing profiles of people based on their handwriting.

…but there’s more! Thanks to word processing and the uniformity of fonts, the written word can also make shapes. Shape poetry is designed to form an overall picture or shape from the words and their placement. It’s like a fourth dimension to the two dimensional art of writing. Height, width and depth and flavor. Writing is four dimensional art on a piece of paper… And this is why I love it.

Truly, there’s a lot to be gleaned from a page of chicken scratch scrap writing by an over talkative brain.

(Image by Kelene Blake)

Beach Day

My vacation is coming to an end, and in honor of that I'm posting a poem I wrote just before the beginning of this vacation. It is a Sestina, a verse form requiring repetition of end words in a particular order. It's not the easiest verse form but it gives interesting results.

Beach Day

by Kelene Blake

Early morning at sea
I watch the waves
Reveal the shore as the tide goes out.
The beach, deserted at this early time,
Lets me soak the dew in
As daylight rises.

I can feel my chest rise
As serenity blows over the sea
And I breathe it in.
I release a wave
Of my stress, built up over time
With every breath I let out.

It feels so good to be out,
Away from the high rise
Buildings and crazy time
Tables, all those people to see,
Pressure hitting me in waves
Of deadlines to get all my work in.

But everything’s finally in
And I can finally get out,
Lie on the sand and let the waves
Wash me clean, make my spirits rise
Clear across the sea
Away from the clutches of time.

And this time
When the tide comes in
I’ll sit on the sea
And let my dreams float out
Rising
On every wave.

And I will wave
Goodbye to time
And land as I rise
To the horizon, breathing in,
Sailing out
With my dreams to the sea.

Late evening time at the sea.
Waves rise and fall as the tide comes in
While my dreams and I go sailing out.

(Photo by Kelene Blake)

Bring On The Moments (or Fuck it! I'm Happy.)

We can be happy this year by saying “Fuck it! I’m happy.”

I know. Not my usual sunshine and flowers. But since life decidedly isn’t just sunshine and flowers, why not? People wonder why I am so positive. Some people think I’m too happy. I recently got “So how come you can still smile?” after telling a friend about some recent developments in my life. I shrugged in response at the time, but I’ll attempt to answer the question now.

My life has many facets: I am pursuing my dreams, exploring my creativity and totally living. Life sucks balls often enough, but while the crap is happening I’m still doing me. And it’s not that I’m ignoring the difficult parts of life, the anger and tears. I give them their time too and believe me I experience them just as fully. I simply don’t see the need to dwell on them every minute of every day. When I feel the less pleasant feelings, I feel them. When I don’t feel them, I let them go. And fortunately I manage to get through a fair portion of my day not feeling the negative.

At this moment I’m happy. At this moment I’m sad. I’m not going to let the first moment tarnish the sanctity of the second or vice versa. There’s no need to temper my sadness by trying to convince myself I’m happy. There’s no need to temper my happiness by convincing myself that things aren’t great. I know things aren’t great, but you know what? Fuck that! I’m still going to allow myself to be happy! My sadness and anger had their fair allotment of time today. It’s joy’s turn to visit.

So welcome 2011! I hope you enjoy your little trek through my life. I hope to be here a lot longer than you are, so enjoy me while you can. Bring on the moments!

(Photo by Kelene Blake: Pensive, 1946 by Elizabeth Catlett, United States/Mexico, James E. Lewis Museum of Art, Morgan State University)

Sole on the Staircase

I can only imagine the rush she must have been in, the woman who left this artifact on a New York subway staircase. The sole of her shoe came off, but she kept going, leaving her sole behind. I know that in reality it may not have been a very romantic scene, more likely a disturbing one, but it just makes me think – sometimes it’s good to just keep going, even when you’ve left your sole on the staircase.

We sometimes move forward in life as though we’re walking under water against an undercurrent, engulfed in resistance. We make our way onward and things get torn from us. But we forge on, leaving the dead weight behind. It’s not easy leaving some of these things behind. Just as leaving the sole of her shoe behind almost definitely made walking more difficult, sometimes what we are forced to let go of in life can make it difficult to move forward. But we learn to adjust our gait, develop new patterns for ourselves and move on.

The sole on the staircase is a reminder of the parts of ourselves that have been torn from us, that we’ve had to let go as we push forward. Even if we feel like we’ve left our very soul behind on the staircase of life, we keep walking. We grow. We move on.

(Photo by Kelene Blake)

People Who Do Not Read

“A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.” Erica Jong

There are people who do not read? There are people who do not read! It is not that they cannot read, they just do not read. They exist! I’ve met some. It is strange to me because I love books. I have always dreamt of building myself a vast library of good reading to last a lifetime. Reading a good book is one of the events that make life beautiful.

Literacy is a gift so powerful that it was illegal to teach slaves to read and write. Why? So that the slaves would remain in a state of mental slavery, the basis of submission to physical slavery. Reading, writing, expression and knowledge – these are keys to expanding and freeing the mind, and where the mind goes the body follows. Why is it that tyrants, dictators and oppressors burning books is a theme repeated so often in history? Because reading opens people up to ideas, helps people to experience in their imaginations and emotions a world outside of their own. Freedom of thought and imagination does not suit an oppressor’s intentions.

We live in a fast advancing technological world and there are far more sources of entertainment now than ever before in human history. Stories are beautifully told on film all the time, in a far shorter time than it would take to read the book. Yet Erica Jong poses an excellent point. Whereas we simply sit and take in a film, the act of reading is not passive and that is what gives the book its power. We think while we read. We enter the story with our minds, interpret, create our own mental film to tell the story to ourselves. We are not watching the director’s interpretation of the story – we are developing our own interpretation and directing our own images of the scenes.

I feel pity for people who do not read. It is one thing to not be able to read. It is another thing to not be interested. It is like a treasure in a cardboard box sitting in the middle of the room. There are those who cannot get into the room and therefore they cannot find the treasure. But there are those who live in the room, see the treasure box right in front of them, but simply have no interest in opening the box to enjoy what is inside because the box isn’t flashy. It seems like self-imposed mental slavery. I think maybe they were unfortunate enough to not have discovered any truly good books at a young age, and that is why they have no interest in reading. All I can say is that it is a pity, non-readers are really missing out.

(Photo by Kelene Blake: The bookshelf that started it all...The bookshelf I had growing up.)

Shrinking Tercets

Swirling
By Kelene Blake

I walk through scattered pieces of love
Swirling around my feet like autumn leaves
Swirling like sadness as I wade through my pain.

Love
Leaves
Pain

What’s to be done with the seasons of life?
Chilly Decembers melt into soggy Marches.
Time’s changes flow ever onward.

Life
Marches
Onward

One day the tears will stop
And leave my eyes clear for looking
At the summer sun whenever it comes back.

Stop
Looking
Back

I had the task of creating my own verse form in poetry, complete with rules and example, as an assignment given by my professor M.K. Asante Jr. It's the second time I've created my own verse form. Tell me what you think about my "Shrinking Tercets"


Rules
i.) The poem is made from an even number of tercets (3 line stanzas) with 2 being the minimum.
ii.) Each pair of stanzas work together as a tercet pair and can stand alone as a single poem.
iii.) The end words of the first stanza of a tercet pair makes up the entire 3-word second stanza of the pair.
iv.) The three words of the second stanza of the tercet pair remain unchanged and must be used in the same order as the end words of the previous stanza.
v.) If there is more than one tercet pair, each must be able to stand alone as an independent poem as well as fit cohesively with the other tercet pairs of the poem.
vi.) When there is more than one tercet pair the even stanzas (3-word stanzas) should be able to be pulled out to make an independent poem.
vii.) The even stanzas are unpunctuated.
viii.) Rhyming is not required.

(Image: Artwork by Trinbagonian artist Lauralin Maynard)

Stumbling Upon The Words

It is exhilarating when your heart stumbles upon the words that express its longing. I have found my heart's prayer. This prayer was in the program of a Thanksgiving service held by the various congregations in Roland Park, Maryland. I think it is a beautiful prayer, full of imagery and wisdom. I thought I would share:

Native American Prayer

Oh, Great Spirit
Whose voice I hear in the winds,
And whose breath gives life to all the world,
hear me, I am small and weak,
I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold
the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have
made and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand the things
you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have
hidden in every leaf and rock.

I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother,
but to fight* my greatest enemy - myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my Spirit may come to you without shame.


(translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887)

*In my own personal version of this prayer I figured I'd much rather "master" myself than "fight" myself.

(Photo by Kelene Blake)