About the Poems - CS
About the Poems
by Carly Sachs Like most writers I suppose, these poems attempt to make art out of life. Perhaps it was a brief, but not yet fleeting relationship with an artist that changed me, that made me think about the many ways in which we perceive the world, realism vs. abstraction, modern vs. post-modern, cubism vs. surrealism. Now, I spend much of my time in the National Gallery looking at art and attempting to uncover what lies behind the canvas; these poems are the secrets I've overheard. I remember reading how Jack Spicer said something about poems just coming into his head, as if they were transmitted by aliens. To tell the truth, I prefer artists. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but I'm guessing it's more like a million. Here are a few hundred. And the cheat sheet because I debated with myself about "explaining the emotional genesis" (I'm quoting a colleague) but decided to only leave you with the actual "genesis" of each poem, rather than my verbose delusion of my own artistic process: "The Reading Girl" (same title as the Magni statue in the National Gallery, DC) "The Conversion of St. Paul" (same title as the painting by Jacopo Tintoretto in the National Gallery, DC) "The Glass Blower" (loosely based on the works of Dale Chihuly) "Kibbutz Nir Am, 1948" (based on a poster of an Israeli soldier carrying a gun in the coatroom of the Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York City) "The Barn, The Viola" (inspired by a barn on Rt. 43 in Ohio while driving to my grandparents' house)