The poems in Sharon Dolin's collection are inspired by abstract paintings. So, unlike the other two poems we've discussed in class, they have really no narrative. I'm putting links to two images below. The first is a Diebenkorn painting, Ocean Park No. 45:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYDoELU7WQXnKN919ukV2IZt4DXPuooKHK3M8BY2wG8KtsYcjQpWCmPp3F_skhTv5WXRyvC9xQXtf8EKe79GS-vVL1PyBF3taIGLbkZMb0ma_-s3tFnpK8p1kILj2f-iw3vJLCkhkLzUI6/s1600-h/Diebenkorn_4.jpg
How would you write in response to something like this? (Try it if you want. You can freewrite here if you want (as long as we can understand what you're saying). Now look at the Dolin poem that was inspired by it (p. 19). How do you interpret the Diebenkorn quote at the beginning (italics)? What does the phrase "undoes doing" mean in this context? How do we get concrete things--grass, barn, buttercups--out of an abstract art work? How does abstract art--which you could argue is about nothing but itself--translate into ideas, concepts, words?
It's more difficult to find the corresponding image-to-poem w/ Joan Mitchell's "black paintings," mainly because most of them were untitled. However, here is a link from the work from that time period, paintings that Mitchell did right after her father died and her mother was ill w/ cancer:
http://www.artnet.com/usernet/awc/awc_thumbnail.asp?AID=424260964&GID=424260964&CID=82750&page=4&recs=6&MaxPages=6&works_of_art=1
I'm interested in how you see these poems inspired by Mitchell in the second part of the book differently from the poems in the first part. How are they different stylistically or topic-wise?
Welcome to the blog for Prof. John Talbird's English 102 class. The purpose of this site is two-fold: 1) to continue the conversations we start in class (and to start conversations BEFORE we get to class) and 2) to practice our writing/reading on a weekly basis in an informal forum. You are required to write AT LEAST two paragraphs a week (in one or more postings).
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