The Best American Poetry

Photo Diary, and Poetry as Monument (all sorts of travelogue by Jessica Piazza)

We’re still in Marfa, though we made a quick zip over to Ft. Davis, which was a great little town.  We stopped at a rattlesnake museum.  And the fort itself, an old military post from the mid-1800s, was incredible.  There was an elderly couple who worked there as volunteers for a few months, hiking and covering the fort museum, while on a cross-country RV journey.  (Josh named them Earl and Sherry, because we didn't catch their names but, man, did they totally look like an Earl and Sherry.)  Also, there was a really interesting, nice guy named Doug who breeds and trains camels, and brought three of them to the fort for a kid’s event they’d had earlier.  I’m in love with camels. 

Before the fort, we took the early half of the Chinati Foundation tour, where we saw a bunch of installations of Donald Judd’s art, along with other artists’s work permanently installed in the buildings on the foundation’s property.

Partially because of these great sights, this post will be mostly photographs…but also partially because I’m exhausted and I want to take a nap before we eat dinner.  Josh's blog will probably cover some more crucial details eventually, plus is just an interesting read generally.

However, I will say that seeing the art this morning reminded me of a conversation we had over drinks with Tim and Caitlin last night.  (Who really are awesome, by the way.  We had a great time with them.)  Tim’s interested in concrete poems, which are rather out of vogue these days.  But some of his poems are political, and concrete or more art-based poems can be interesting, I think, in terms of “poetry as monument.”  The artifact of the poem becomes a testimonial the same way a memorial statue or a plaque might.    And funny enough, Tim has had plenty of his poems shown at art shows, even when literary journals might not be as responsive.

It’s a question, then, whether visual artists are simply more open-minded to mixing genres without re-labeling the work.  Because, sure, we poets often collaborate with artists, but for some reason I feel like we don’t generally call these collaborations “poems,” where an artist might more easily call them “artworks.” 

So, pictures.  But first, your question for today:

What’s your favorite piece of writing about art?  Or animals?  Or forts, for that matter?

And more below....

This Just In . . . Live blogging from Bill Hayward's Intimacy Project

Bill Hayward sends along this link and photos from The Port Authority, where poets Jeff Johnson and Claire Donato are live blogging poetry every day during the performance's 10-day run.  Check it out!

Letter to Cummins from the Island of Idyllwild [by David Lehman and David St. John]

Letter to Cummins from the Island of Idyllwild

Dear Jim, forgive the long delay in writing
But the feasts go on from dawn to dawn
And the natives insist on feeding us by hand, slices
        of papaya
And mango with orange beer. Last night
We stood beneath a sky of white and green silk sea
Anemones pulsing like parachutes above an amphitheater
         as wide
As a valley, and a single child walked out to sing to
        the crows
Rasping above us in nearby pines. You may not remember
        this, but
That child, circumcised and blond, outshouted the sea
That summer when amnesia invaded our sleeping bags
Like bugs transmitting the intimacy of an illness.
You had sex with a friendly neighbor and woke up without
A hangover or any memory of how she seduced you.
The island was full of enchantments, and still is.
There are lotus flowers, young goddesses with liquid bodies
In loose summer frocks, craters of quicksand and
       rushing rapids.
On this island no news is fair weather, and the women
      write poems.
And so whatever you might have feared for us, don’t
      worry now.
The six points of the pirate’s compass will guide us
As the six breezes from the seven continents return like
A sestina’s consolation and the envoy’s delight. Here, on our
Perpetually new isle, we can imagine you imagining us, idle
      as the natives
Of Idyllwild, yearning to be as wise, and as wild. David
      & David.

-- David Lehman & David St. John