Writing in the Galleries (I)

My artist date this week was signing up for the free program Writing in The Galleries from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. I facilitate a group of people via Facebook who are using Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for recovering their creativity. Morning pages and artist’s dates are two fundamental practices we’re working on this month (contact me if you’d like to know more).

Poet Rick Benjamin gave us a mini-lecture on his take on Ekphrastic Poetry, time scarcity skepticism, and a few of the underpinnings of Buddhism.

He recited three poems for us:

Buddha’s Satori, by Muso Soseki, 13th C (tr. Merwin)

Oceans, by Juan Ramon Ramirez (tr. Robert Bly)

One Art, by Elisabeth Bishop

He invited us to observe a piece of art from the galleries and jot down a “fast and loose” poem, not about the art, but about the relationship between ourselves and the art.

GO.

From the exhibit “Stillness,” I was attracted to a photograph of two detachable, late Victorian collars. As a historical costumer, what sprang to mind was the sensation of wearing restrictive artifacts like those in the photograph, Worn About The Neck. Historical clothing affects the wearer, and based on my experience, this poem spilled out of me:

Let’s Play Dress Up

If we let history
remain stiff
starched
black and white
only on the pages
it will choke us.

If we take it from
the book
fumble with its awkward stud
prick ourselves
with an unaccustomed stick pin
smell the blood
and sweat
and sin,
then we will
understand history;
How the collar supports our heads high
to look
and feel
and truly see far enough
to finally change history.