Monday, November 27, 2006
Adrienne Rich on the importance of poetry
Thursday, November 16, 2006
On John Berger
John Berger, the British Marxist art critic, is the only writer whose art criticism I've been able to read, or to read more than a page or two. His writing about works of art and artists, about art history, artistic concepts and movements, is wonderfully free of overly academic murk and sludge. He writes always from a perspective of trying to respond to a particular piece of art in the immediacy of seeing it, as it communicates with the viewer in the living world in which they both exist, in the context of history.
In a short article by Berger titled "Ossip Zadkine," originally published in 1959, Berger describes a large bronze sculpture by Zadkine that stands overlooking the harbor of Rotterdam. The sculpture was made as a monument, a memorial of the massive destruction, by bombing, of the center of the city in May 1940 -- Rotterdam was one of the European cities (Warsaw was another) targeted by the German Nazi government for systematic extermination bombing.
Berger describes Zadkine's sculpture:
If you're not familiar with the work of John Berger, a good one to start with is his book Ways of Seeing (Penguin Books), based on a BBC television series of the same name. The book includes many pictures (reproductions of paintings, photos, pictures of magazine ads, etc.) to illustrate the artistic theoretical concepts Berger talks about. Many other works of his are also available.
I recently found a John Berger website that provides basic information on him and includes a link to a publisher's page listing many of his pubished works.
Much more information on the sculptor Ossip Zadkine can be found at the website for the Ossip Zadkine Research Center. It includes photos of many of his works, a short biographical summary, and other information. You can use the search function to search the website for pictures of the Zadkine sculptor described above (a couple of large-size versions, and some smaller models of it he also made). The sculpture is titled "La ville detruite" ("The Destroyed City").
In a short article by Berger titled "Ossip Zadkine," originally published in 1959, Berger describes a large bronze sculpture by Zadkine that stands overlooking the harbor of Rotterdam. The sculpture was made as a monument, a memorial of the massive destruction, by bombing, of the center of the city in May 1940 -- Rotterdam was one of the European cities (Warsaw was another) targeted by the German Nazi government for systematic extermination bombing.
Berger describes Zadkine's sculpture:
You walk around the plain granite block on which the figure, cast in dark bronze, simultaneously stands, dies and advances. The scale is big. Two or three large gulls can perch on the hand that appears to be flattened against the surface of the sky. Between the outstretched arms the clouds move. A ship's siren sounds on the other side of the water, and you think of the largest anchor, but buckled, and trailing not over the seabed but over those moving clouds. At night it is different. It becomes a silhouette, less symbolic and more human. Shadows, which are half the visual language of sculpture, are obliterated. Only the gesture therefore remains. A man stands, arms raised to hold off an invisible load between him and the stars. Then in the early morning you see again the lime of the gulls and the dead fixed texture of the massively cast bronze in contrast with the bright, crinkling surface of the water. Thus the sculpture changes with the time of day. It is not a passive figure with a corrugated cloak waiting to be benighted, lit up, scorched and snowed upon until it becomes no more than the unmeltable core of a snowman. Its function and not just its appearance depends upon the hours. It engages time. And the reason for this is that its whole conception as a work of art is based on its awareness of development and change.Berger speaks more about the dual qualities of the sculpted figure, appearing simultaneously to be falling and advancing:
The torso of the man is ripped open and his heart destroyed. [...] the wound, which is fact is a hole right through the body, is seen in terms of the twisted metal of the burnt-out shell of a building. The legs give at the knees. The whole figure is about to fall.Another excerpt from John Berger, from a longer essay, "The Moment of Cubism." In it Berger makes an in-depth exploration of the intentions, methods and world outlook of various early 20th century artists whose work is now commonly referred to as cubist (including Picasso, Juan Gris, and others), and also traces some of the historical background in art and in the world at large. From "The Moment of Cubism":
[...] This is also a figure of aspiration and advance. The heart is ripped out, but the head and hands are not only held high in anguish and a vain attempt to hold off, they also raise and lift. The legs not only give at the knees, they also bend because they are steady. And from every direction as you walk round this figure, the step appears to be forwards. The figure has no back--and so cannot retreat. It advances in every direction (and do not think I am now talking metaphorically; I am being quite literal). On the site of the old city a new one was to be built. One week after the German attack, plans were made to rebuild Rotterdam after the Germans were eventually driven out. And so the curses also become a rallying cry.
The metaphorical model of cubism is the diagram: the diagram being a visible, symbolic representation of invisible processes, forces, structures. A diagram need not eschew certain aspects of appearances: but these too will be treated symbolically as signs, not as imitations or re-creations.The above excerpts are taken from John Berger's Selected Essays (Vintage, 2001). I've never read anything by Berger that I didn't find provocative and fascinating. I often read him when I need to clarify and refresh my mind in times when I'm busy too much with dull routine things.
The model of the diagram differs from that of the mirror in that it suggests a concern with what is not self-evident. It differs from the model of the theatre stage in that it does not have to concentrate upon climaxes but can reveal the continuous. It differs from the model of the personal account in that it aims at a general truth.
The Renaissance artist imitated nature. The Mannerist and Classic artist reconstructed examples from nature in order to transcend nature. The Cubist realized that his awareness was part of nature.
Heisenberg speaks as a modern physicist. "Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is part of the interplay between nature and ourselves: it describes nature as exposed to our method of questioning." Similarly, the frontal facing of nature became inadequate in art.
If you're not familiar with the work of John Berger, a good one to start with is his book Ways of Seeing (Penguin Books), based on a BBC television series of the same name. The book includes many pictures (reproductions of paintings, photos, pictures of magazine ads, etc.) to illustrate the artistic theoretical concepts Berger talks about. Many other works of his are also available.
I recently found a John Berger website that provides basic information on him and includes a link to a publisher's page listing many of his pubished works.
Much more information on the sculptor Ossip Zadkine can be found at the website for the Ossip Zadkine Research Center. It includes photos of many of his works, a short biographical summary, and other information. You can use the search function to search the website for pictures of the Zadkine sculptor described above (a couple of large-size versions, and some smaller models of it he also made). The sculpture is titled "La ville detruite" ("The Destroyed City").
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Droning engines of midnight
"It begins with the highway of death," write Brian Turner in his poem "Hwy 1" in his book Here, Bullet (Alice James Books, 2004).
This book of poems by a military veteran of the current war in Iraq brings the reader into the close-up flesh and blood and sand and dirt of the war there, in ways no CNN "news" report can hope to do. The culture of the present-day United States is haunted by the experience remembered, or (in some cases) willfully ignored, from the war in Viet Nam. One after another the poems in Here, Bullet bring back all of the stories, the madness and terror, the nerve-gnawing tension and deadening monotony, of that previous disastrous enterprise of corporate empire. In recent weeks even some politicians who support the Bush administration have reluctantly allowed comparisons between the war in Viet Nam and the present war in Iraq. Ghosts haunt until one addresses them.
The poem "Hwy 1" concludes:
Here and there people of Iraq are in Turner's poems. Here, Bullet includes a number of quotes from Arabic literature as epigrams, there are poems dealing with the history and culture of the Arabic world, and, sometimes, moments from the lives and deaths of Iraqi people in the war. From the poem "2000 lbs." (a poem in several sections, describing the first moments after a bomb explosion in a public place in a city):
A poem that especially brought this to mind for me is "Through the Leupold Scope," in which Turner describes observing the routines of daily life in the city of Halabjah through what he describes (in a footnote) as a "spotting scope" with "long-range relief and very high resolution." Scanning the city skyline with the military device, he sees a woman on a rooftop,
I don't intend here an argument against explicit political analysis in poems, and I am not arguing in favor of writing entirely from subjective feelings and sense impressions. Poet Thomas McGrath used the analogy from classical Greek and Roman mythology of the gates to the underworld, one made of ivory and one of horn. Dreams, it was said, came from the underworld to the sleepers of the surface world; through the gate of horn came dreams that were true, through the gate of ivory came dreams that were false. Our dreams are affected by the world we live in as much as our waking minds are, and sometimes our dreams -- and our feelings, and our senses -- can deceive us, or be deceived. There is a place in poetry for critical thought.
This is an essential book of poems, for all that it offers, and regardless of the slight mixed feelings I've discussed here. And the book is not entirely without insight into the machinery of empire at work behind the daily living and dying. From the poem "Caravan," describing the loading and transport of cargo from ships in a Persian Gulf port:
My thanks to Ruth Ellen Kocher, publisher of the blog aboutaword, from whom I first heard about Here, Bullet.
This book of poems by a military veteran of the current war in Iraq brings the reader into the close-up flesh and blood and sand and dirt of the war there, in ways no CNN "news" report can hope to do. The culture of the present-day United States is haunted by the experience remembered, or (in some cases) willfully ignored, from the war in Viet Nam. One after another the poems in Here, Bullet bring back all of the stories, the madness and terror, the nerve-gnawing tension and deadening monotony, of that previous disastrous enterprise of corporate empire. In recent weeks even some politicians who support the Bush administration have reluctantly allowed comparisons between the war in Viet Nam and the present war in Iraq. Ghosts haunt until one addresses them.
The poem "Hwy 1" concludes:
Cranes roost atop power lines in enormousThe feeble arguments in favor of the present U.S. government assault on human life in Iraq (and in the world at large), suggesting that "they hate us for our freedom," that retreating from a war policy will leave the U.S. vulnerable to attack, make hollow echoes of the similar arguments that went on for years by supporters of the U.S. military effort in Viet Nam. If the U.S. withdrew military forces from Viet Nam too soon, warhawks warned -- oblivious to the clanking irony -- there would be a bloodbath.
bowl-shaped nests of sticks and twigs,
and when a sergeant shoots one from the highway
it pauses, as if amazed that death has found it
here, at 7 a.m. on such a beautiful morning,
before pitching over the side and falling
in a slow unraveling of feathers and wings.
[...] and when she closes her eyes(From the poem "AB Negative (The Surgeon's Poem).")
the most beautiful colors rise in darkness,
tangerine washing into Russian blue,
with the droning engine humming on
in a dragonfly's wings, island palms
painting the sky and impossible hue
with their thick brushes dripping green...
a way of dealing with the fact
that Thalia Fields is gone, long gone,
about as far from Mississippi
as she can get, ten thousand feet above Iraq
with a blanket draped over her body
and an exhausted surgeon in tears,
his bloodied hands on her chest, his head
sunk down, the nurse guiding him
to a nearby seat and holding him as he cries,
though no one hears it, because nothing can be heard
where pilots fly in blackout, the plane
like a shadow guiding the rain, here
in the droning engines of midnight.
Here and there people of Iraq are in Turner's poems. Here, Bullet includes a number of quotes from Arabic literature as epigrams, there are poems dealing with the history and culture of the Arabic world, and, sometimes, moments from the lives and deaths of Iraqi people in the war. From the poem "2000 lbs." (a poem in several sections, describing the first moments after a bomb explosion in a public place in a city):
Nearby, an old woman cradles her grandson,There are times when the elegance of Turner's language seems to me to create a distance from the experience he's writing about, that feels a little artificially literary, where sheer description partially obscures the stark reality he's writing about. Many of the poems convey an understandable desperation to find something of beauty and the persistence of life in the midst of the rampant death and destruction in which, as a solder, Turner was taking part. I don't pretend to know any specific things Turner did during his time in Iraq, either as part of military actions or otherwise. However the poems in Here, Bullet do raise with particular sharpness the long-persisting questions about the blurred lines between being an observer and being a participant.
whispering, rocking him on her knees
as though singing him to sleep, her hands
wet with their blood, her black dress
soaked in it as her legs give out
and she buckles with him to the ground.
A poem that especially brought this to mind for me is "Through the Leupold Scope," in which Turner describes observing the routines of daily life in the city of Halabjah through what he describes (in a footnote) as a "spotting scope" with "long-range relief and very high resolution." Scanning the city skyline with the military device, he sees a woman on a rooftop,
hanging laundry on an invisible line.Based on the footnotes and on the content of many of the poems, Turner has made an effort to know and understand Iraqi and Arabic history and culture. The poems, by virtue of their urgent subject matter, make an insistent political message, though for the most part do not attempt explicit statements or political analysis as such. Turner appears to have allowed his immediate senses do the speaking and listening, and I found the poems highly effective and moving throughout -- so overwhelming, at times, that I could only read a few of them at a time, and had to wait before coming back to the book to read more.
She is dressing the dead, clothing them
as they wait in silence, the pigeons circling
as fumestacks billow a noxious black smoke.
She is welcoming them back to the dry earth,
giving them dresses in tangerine and teal,
woven cotton shirts dyed blue.
She waits for them to lean forward
into the breeze, for the wind's breath
to return the bodies they once had,
women with breasts swollen by milk,
men with shepherd-thin bodies, children
running hard into the horizon's curving lens.
I don't intend here an argument against explicit political analysis in poems, and I am not arguing in favor of writing entirely from subjective feelings and sense impressions. Poet Thomas McGrath used the analogy from classical Greek and Roman mythology of the gates to the underworld, one made of ivory and one of horn. Dreams, it was said, came from the underworld to the sleepers of the surface world; through the gate of horn came dreams that were true, through the gate of ivory came dreams that were false. Our dreams are affected by the world we live in as much as our waking minds are, and sometimes our dreams -- and our feelings, and our senses -- can deceive us, or be deceived. There is a place in poetry for critical thought.
This is an essential book of poems, for all that it offers, and regardless of the slight mixed feelings I've discussed here. And the book is not entirely without insight into the machinery of empire at work behind the daily living and dying. From the poem "Caravan," describing the loading and transport of cargo from ships in a Persian Gulf port:
[...] Cranes* * *
hoist connexes onto flatbed trucks
which line Highway 1 from Kuwait City
to Dohuk in the north, just south of Turkey,
with enough boxes of food
for a hundred and thirty thousand meals,
two to three times a day for a year,
an army of commerce, a fleet
of corporations with the Pacific as its highway--
these are the boxes we bring to Iraq.
Today, in Baghdad, a bomb
kills forty-seven and wounds over one hundred,
leaving a crater ten feet deep. The stunned
gather body parts from the roadway
to collect in cardboard boxes
which will not be taped and shipped
to the White House lawn, not buried
under the green sod thrown over, box by box
emptied into the rich soil in silence
while a Marine sentry stands guard
at the National Monument, Tomb of the Unknown,
our own land given to these, to say
if this is freedom, then we will share it.
My thanks to Ruth Ellen Kocher, publisher of the blog aboutaword, from whom I first heard about Here, Bullet.
