MetaFilter posts tagged with poetry and art

Tethered To The Sun

dual_action — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 20:46:57 -0800

They are tethered to the sun. Ashley and Traci are neighbors who connect on issues such as desire, books, paintings, and photography. Ingoing. NSFW

wetness ... pours onto my paper out of my pen

divabat — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 09:32:05 -0800

Suheir Hammad, a Palestinian-American poet and activist now based in New York, writes about being a Muslim immigrant and also a woman challenging conventions. Spotted by Russell Simmons for Def Poetry Jam, she has performed pieces about love in the time of war, exoticising beauty, and a touching ode to her father, among many others. Suheir has just produced and released her first feature film Salt of This Sea, up for the Cannes Films Festival and possibly an Oscar, and recently performed in Ramallah for the 2009 Palestinian Festival of Literature.

Typographic Mobiles

netbros — Sat, 30 May 2009 10:55:09 -0800

"I want our type to jump, scream, whisper and dance..." Ebon Heath and His Visual Poetry. "When I close my eyes I can see the words of great poets like Rakem or Tupac flying thru the air and dancing with the same physicality my body instinctually feels. My mobiles attempt to create a visual sense of rhythm and flow that is alive, not contained." This interview with Heath breaks down his Stereo.type and Purge projects. From the folks at Yatzer.com.

in the street of the sky night walks scattering poems

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 19:58:29 -0800

Should you find yourself wandering around the city of Leiden, the Netherlands sometime, you may notice some curious markings on the city's walls.

These Muurgedichten ("Wall Poems") adorn many of the town's streets (clickable map), and many English-language poets are represented: one John Keats, for instance, inside a bookshop; Dylan Thomas, E. E. Cummings, W.B. Yeats, some guy called William Shakespeare, or this ode to Charlie Parker by American William Waring Cuney. But poets of many other languages and nationalities can be found throughout the city. Just to name a few: Charles Baudelaire (French), Jorge Luis Borges (Spanish - Argentina), Herman Gorter (Dutch). And being native to this here neck of the woods I would be remiss if I were to neglect mentioning some of my favourites: apart from the Cummings one mentioned above, my hero of Dutch poetry J.C. Bloem's appropriately overgrown tribute to Paul Verlaine; and Guillaume Apollinaire's Dadaist/Surrealist "Loin du Pigeonnier" ("Far From the Dovecote"). Lastly, Muurgedichten collects manifestations of public poetry found elsewhere under its "Not in Leiden" heading. I couldn't resist a selection:

Humorous medical one in Brazil (Portuguese).

Martin Carter (Netherlands Antilles, English)

Excerpt from JFK's inaugural address (Boston, English)

Childrens Rights (Zanzibar, English)

Policemans Prayer (Virginia, US, English)

Short, brilliantly framed Byron quote (Utrecht, NL, English)

No man is illegal (Sittard, NL, Dutch)

I am a poet. Should I want the rose to bloom, the rose will bloom. (Vlaardigen, NL, Dutch)

You'll Think, What's That Poet Doing (Monnickendam, NL, Dutch) You'll think, what's that poet doing In our alley On our wall In our town When he's not from 'round here. To be frank: so do I. But still, now you're looking at me. I can talk to you, say That I am happy you're looking at me And then you might for instance say "likewise". We wouldn't have done so otherwise.

Nancy Luce

paduasoy — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:56:06 -0800

A "singular creature, whose secluded life and remarkable eccentricities have long made her an object of peculiar interest” is described in the 1876 A guide to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. This woman, Nancy Luce (c 1814 to 1890), published books of poems and information about her chickens. Her first book was Poor Little Hearts and her second was A complete edition of the works of Nancy Luce ... containing God's words--Sickness--Poor little hearts--Milk--No comfort--Prayers--Our Savior's golden rule--Hen's names, etc. Here’s part of Poor Little Hearts and here’s Lines composed by Nancy Luce about poor little Ada Queetie and poor little Beauty Linna, both deceased ... . A sad poem – “I hope I never shall have a hen, to set so much by again ... “ is quoted in this account of a visit to her grave. She put up a gravestone (NYT, 1873) to one of her hens, Tweedle Dedel Bebbee Pinky. Luce’s papers were sold by the town authorities to pay her burial expenses, and are now at Brown University Library. The papers were used by Walter Magnes Teller in his biography, Poor I: The Life and Works of Nancy Luce – NYT review.

There are several pictures of her: with one hen; with two hens; sitting outside her house; sitting in the doorway of her house; and what looks like a postcard of her and her house. Luce has become important in the local history and tourism of Martha’s Vineyard. There is a tradition of putting model chickens on her grave. Artist and gallery owner Ruth Adams says she is inspired by Luce – here’s a small image of her sculpture of Luce. Other artists have also used Luce as a starting point; Jennifer Langhammer’s Broken Hearted puts lines from one of Luce’s poems on an egg, and Victoria Marks makes her own chicken books.

During her life, however, Luce’s relationship with tourism was more difficult. Although she made her living from tourists, and the 1876 guide says “It is always best to go with a party: the fun is apt to be proportionately greater,” it doesn’t sound like much fun for Luce. The poet and printmaker Daniel Waters, who has made a linocut of Luce, quotes a letter she wrote in 1879 saying she was “murdered alive”: see his poem The Hag of Tiah’s Cove.

Ancient Greece

netbros — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:24:40 -0800

Explore the History of the Ancient Greek World from the Neolithic to the Classical Period. Covering important topics, such as Art and Architecture, Mythology, Wars, Culture and Society, Poetry, Olympics, History Periods, Philosophy, Playwrights, Kings and Rulers of Ancient Greece.

The Film and Arts Online Magazine

netbros — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 07:43:13 -0800

Scene 360 is an online film and arts magazine, profiling and interviewing artists & web designers, filmmakers and writers.

visual poetry, today

mediareport — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 17:53:25 -0800

Visual Poetry Today collects various forms of visual poetry, today. It includes Peter Ciccariello, who wraps text around computer-modeled landscapes. Here's more from Derek Beaulieu, including his "flattening" of Edward Abbot's Flatland, and links from his site to a pointed, if not savage, back-and-forth about an anthology he co-edited. More from Joel Lipman. See also the classics thread at the vispoets discussion board, these two related posts from Katallus, and The New Post-literate, a blog about asemic writing.

Artists' Books Online

Kattullus — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 05:33:43 -0800

Artists' Books Online is a collection by the University of Virginia of artists' books. Artists' books are works of art that take the form of books and are often both text and visual art. Either way, they're awful interesting to look at. Here are some artbooks to get you started: How to Humiliate Your Peeping Tom by Susan Baker, The Word Made Flesh by Johanna Drucker, Life in a Book by Francois Deschamps, A.A.A.R.P. by Clifton Kirkpatrick Meador, opuntia is just another name for a prickly pear by Todd Walker and Black Dog White Bark by Erica Van Horn

The Agrippa Files

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 01:32:36 -0800

The Agrippa Files presents a fairly expansive overview of the original and very rare 1992 art book Agrippa (a book of the dead), a collaboration between artist Dennis Ashbaugh, author William Gibson, and award-winning journalist Kevin Begos, Jr. that presciently explored the ephemeral nature of and decay of memories and information. The comprehensive site includes selected pages from handmade and other editions of the book, along with a simulation of disappearing ink-printed pages, as well as the source code, bit-level copy and emulation of William Gibson's self-destructing work of poetry, which can be read once before it irreversibly encrypts itself. The Agrippa Files also collects scholarly essays on the artworks, exploring meaning and impact.

Letters to Young Artists

grapefruitmoon — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 15:17:31 -0800

Wear Good Shoes : Advice for Young Photographers. [via] Also: Letter to a Young Collage Artist by Winston Smith The original: Letters to A Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke

How Much

homunculus — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:55:56 -0800

Quantum of culture. Terminology from quantum theory shows up frequently in art, films, poetry and sculpture. Robert P. Crease gauges the impact of quantum mechanics on popular culture. [Via]

The T'ang Dynasty

homunculus — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 17:00:12 -0800

China's Golden Age.

Art and poetry from the post-Enligthenment and pre-Modernist era

Kattullus — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:32:12 -0800

ArtMagick is a collection of art and poetry that roughly dates from after the Enlightenment but before Modernism. While the poetry section is extensive the main draw is the sites extensive art collection, which can be browsed by artist, art movement, title, theme or albums created by the site's users. So, forget the summer heat with some chilly pictures of winter, check out famous objects of devotion or search the archive.

Nobody knows Emperors and Queens more intimately

tellurian — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:39:16 -0800

Pictures of 100 poems by 100 poets, explained by a Wet Nurse - Hokusai's pictures describe what the poems do in the head of a wet nurse. With high resolution scans.

Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy

Kattullus — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:21:09 -0800

Selections of Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Calligraphy from the collection of The Library of Congress. 373 individual pieces from ranging in time from the 9th to the 19th Century, all explained and some translated. A few personal favorites (note that very high quality scans can be viewed by clicking the appropriate link after clicking thumbnail): marriage decree, verses on tragic love, practice sheet, verses 10-11 of the 48th chapter of the Qur'an, poetic verses offering advice, frontispiece of Qur'anic exegesis and quatrain by Rumi. There are also four special presentations: Calligraphers of the Persian Tradition, Ottoman Calligraphers and Their Works, Qur’anic Fragments and Noteworthy Items. This last presentation also features representational art, for instance images of The battle of Mazandaran and the Persian king Bahram Gur hunting.

The Modernist Journals Project

mediareport — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 09:50:15 -0800

The Modernist Journals Project collects literary arts journals from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including both issues of Wyndham Lewis' Vorticist manifesto Blast, the first ten years of Poetry magazine (with Amy Lowell, T.S. Eliot, G.K. Chesterton and foreign correspondent Ezra Pound), topical essays, the Virginia Woolf-inspired December 1910 Project, the amazing proto-dada zine Le Petit Journal des Réfusées and a searchable biographical database of famous and not so famous artists and writers.

DVblog: video blog for Quicktime movies

cgc373 — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 13:09:57 -0800

Found via these two 1985 David Fincher music videos, but browsed because of a clear tagged interface and some great content, here's DVblog.org.

Poem as Comic Strip

Miko — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:16:08 -0800

Poetry's turn to go graphic. The Poetry Foundation has invited a few graphic novelists to illustrate poems from its archive. Via.

Penile Art.

gman — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 04:35:35 -0800

He's not just a poet. Pricasso also paints with his penis. He's 'done' Ron Paul and other world leaders. This is not a self-link, but it is a tad NSFW.

Poems and Drawings of the Girl Born Without A Mother

mediareport — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 08:20:20 -0800

Fan of Caresses/Supreme Discharged Toilette Ron Padgett's 1968 translations of the 18 drawing-poems from Francis Picabia's poetry collection Poèmes et dessins de la fille née sans mère, from the latest issue of onedit. Much more Picabia inside. [via this from Ron Silliman]

Stack poems.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 11:21:45 -0800

Max Dohle's Stapelgedichten is a simple concept. Stack up some books, take a picture: a poem is born. Most are in Dutch, but there are some English ones as well.

Great and marvellous are thy works...

hermitosis — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 21:51:32 -0800

The Book of Job, as illustrated by William Blake, in high resolution. He was 68 when he finished it in 1826, but died the following year before he could finish giving Dante's "Inferno" the same treatment. (Complete Blake Archive.)

It's just a web page with some really amazing content.

eustacescrubb — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 05:14:38 -0800

"Another useful analogy might be with a clearing in the jungle. The web is certainly a jungle, and without a few clearings it is hard to see how the innocent can stay sane in there, and it might soon be hard to see anything at all." The words of poet and essayist Clive James, whose eponymous site is an online galley/anthology of breathtaking writing, art, and video interviews. My favorites include Ophelia Redpath's paintings titled after Shakespeare quotes, Laura Noble's photos of rusty things, and, of course, a collection James's outstanding poetry.

Ibsen Year 2006

jrb223 — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:49:06 -0800

How are you celebrating Ibsen Year 2006? Reading Henrik Ibsen’s plays? His poems? What about his paintings? There’s always Peer Gynt: The Videogame.