Tag scorpio

* sketchiness with Bill Knott

José Angel Araguz 3 Comments
* Domino Effect *

* Domino Effect *

The above is a snapshot of where I’m at in my sketching.  While I would love – and will continue to aspire to – sketch nice scenes of trees (really, just trees, nothing too fancy) I keep coming back to these little efforts that make me smirk.

Do people groan at visual puns?  I’d really like to know.

I’ve been doodling things like the above for years but never put one in my sketchbook til this week.  I was sitting there thinking: Be inspired.  Be inspired.  When some other part of me spoke up and said: Y’know, it’d be funny if…

A few years ago, I came across William Steig’s book The Lonely Ones in which he draws caricatures of emotions like greed and envy.  Totally kindred spirits.  A sort of visual poetry, a bit campier than Magritte.

Here is a drawing inspired by this week’s poem by Bill Knott.

* To Be Continued *

* To Be Continued *

As Usual – Bill Knott *

Immediately I’m dead
Body laid out straight
Please don’t hesitate
Just cut off my head

Lift it and lay it a foot
Or so below my feet
Shift it till I look like
An exclamation mark

Overt sign of joy pain
Surprise consternation
Despair exuberance

As usual a metaphor
Meant to  make up for
My lack of coherence

***

Happy cohering!

Jose

* from his book The Unsubscriber

* arriving with Denise Levertov

José Angel Araguz 2 Comments

Overland to the Islands – Denise Levertov

Let’s go — much as that dog goes,
intently haphazard.  The
Mexican light on a day that
“smells like autumn in Connecticut”
makes iris ripples on his
black gleaming fur — and that too
is as one would desire — a radiance
consorting with the dance.
Under his feet
rock and mud, his imagination, sniffing,
engaged in its perceptions — dancing
edgeways, there’s nothing
the dog disdains on his way,
nevertheless he
keeps moving, changing
pace and approach but
not direction — “every step an arrival.”

*arrivearrivearrive*

*arrivearrivearrive*

Our professor snuck in this poem at the tail end of Levertov’s essay “Some Notes on Organic Form” – a good read for you poets if you have the time.

Much of what moves me here in this particular poem – the juxtaposition of senses and sensibility, how the poem insists on perception after perception, leads from word to word in an engaging manner – is discussed in that essay in terms of meditation and breath.

I have been much involved in another kind of meditation and breath, one that centers me after teaching.  Here’s a quote that has followed me into my inner space the past two days:

All the world is a dream, not because it isn’t there, but because we each attach different meanings to it.

— Ming-Dao Deng, 365 Tao

Happy attaching!

Jose