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October 2024

Come to me, said the World.

I was walking on a dike towards the Columbia river, water levels so low that the geese rested on sand banks in the middle of the sidearm.

Drought had emptied the ponds of all water, colored the landscape with muted browns.

(The brown center is usually a lake)

Leaves of the cottonwoods all silvery in the bright light, mustard yellow on the ground once shed, echoing the lichen.

A few familiars, a harrier hawk, herons and deer, a fearless kestrel advertising the location, an egret flying in search of water. It was hot and it was still, only some isolated chants of geese formations carrying across the meadows, stark light, air shimmering.

If you can’t walk with me through a strangely out-of-season October landscape, find a comfortable spot to sit and read a very long poem. It contains worlds. Cyclic worlds of destruction, worlds of renewal, worlds of despair and ultimately resilience.

It also contains lines that describe perfectly what I experienced yesterday, “summer after summer has ended, … the low hills shine, ochre and fire, even the fields shine… a sun that could be the August sun … a day like a day in summer, exceptionally still.”

I have not been exactly a fan of poet Louise Glück who won the Nobel Prize in 2020, and died this week a year ago. For me, her biting wit too often veered into cruelty. Yet I do see why the Nobel committee awarded Glück “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” She describes the core of coping with trauma regardless of what it was or whom it affected: a person, a people, a planet. There is indeed a universality to the processes she describes, understands and accepts, with a few recommendations toward action or acceptance thrown in.

Having written last week about Kintsugi as a ceramic art form addressing trauma, I thought we might be challenged by looking at poetry that shares some of that approach. Laying bare the scars, acknowledging the irreversibility to a prior state of being, but finding beauty in acknowledgment – there with gold dust as a means of emphasis, here with determined words that claim an untouchable core.

The poem I chose for that purpose is called October. It was written in 2002 as a response to the World Trade Center bombing, and published in Averno in 2006. Lago d’Averno is the name of a deep crater lake near Naples, Italy, thought to be the gateway to the underworld by the Romans. The volume contains several poems describing the myth of Persephone and her cyclical return to earth, with imagery alternating between the destructive world of Hades where she has to reside, and the fruitful world of earth where she is permitted to return to her mother, Demeter, and makes things grow, for periods of time.

22 years later, the poem fits with a world gone mad, whether with personal loss, or the ravages of war, the lure of fascism, or the fears brought on by nature shedding all reserve – through pandemics, or catastrophic changes in climate that lead to the disasters we are now experiencing. It alludes to fear, memory distortion, experienced harm and a refusal to give in to despair, even when we have to acknowledge that we cannot turn to the earth and the planets to rescue us.

Here is my spontaneous take (and you might want to read the poem below first, so I make at least a semblance of sense…):

The first section describes disorientation, a shifting and uncertainty of where the narrator is in time, a loss of a sense of hearing or the ability to decipher meaning. It alludes to pointlessness in trying to anchor herself, no more grasp on reality. It mentions a better, more fertile past where we believed in growing things, in good outcomes. It is a jumble of confusion. Wasn’t life supposed to have a happy ending?

The second section has the narrator reemerge with a strong mind, one that is tested and wary, observing, able to discern that the violence of trauma changed her, harmed a body in ways that cannot be reversed, but a mind now clearly assessing the world that is. Nature is still around, like a bit player, observed but not able to intervene.

Section 3 is given to memory. Remnants of beauty, succor in nature, a world beckoning you to be part of it. Reminiscence makes way to acknowledgment that life can bring pain worse than death. An inkling of defiance, not a submissive nod to saying good bye. So many amazing things to list.

Section 4 starts – for me – to deliver the goods. The poet acknowledges how horrid things have become, how fall (after trauma) contains so much more loss than spring, but she starts to add up what still exists: ideals still burn in us, like a fever or a second heart, music remains, though changed, perceptions are sharpened.

“How privileged you are, to be passionately
clinging to what you love;
the forfeit of hope has not destroyed you.
Maestoso, doloroso:
This is the light of autumn; it has turned on us.
Surely it is a privilege to approach the end
still believing in something.”

Majestic. Painful. A core of us remains intact, despite the horrors, indestructible.

The fifth section reminds us that there is still work to do, work that can be done, and that we are not alone in all of this, whether in collective grief or through collective action.

And lastly, section six seems to sink into the depth of defeat, acknowledging the destruction of a barren earth, no longer nurturing, no longer an option to act as a rescuer. But then the moon appears, with the last lines referring to beauty and friendship. There is no illusion that the moon will do what the earth can no longer, but the concepts of beauty and friendship counteract hopelessness, suggesting there are still forms of connection.

Like in real trauma work, the alternations of drowning and lift-up, of cycling between hope and despair, of past and future orientation, allow us to spiral upwards on our own path towards healing.

“How privileged you are, to be passionately clinging to what you love.”

Maybe it’s privilege. Maybe it’s grace. Maybe it’s simple grit, refusing to give up.

I’ll cling as long as I want to, trauma be damned. I’m not forfeiting hope either, let me tell you. There is still too much work to do. (And I hope I’m not eating my words after the election. Then again, remember what Persephone and Demeter, central figures in the Eleusinian Mysteries, promised true believers: a happy afterlife. Looks like we have one final shot…)

October

1.
Is it winter again, is it cold again,
didn’t Frank just slip on the ice,
didn’t he heal, weren’t the spring seeds planted
didn’t the night end,
didn’t the melting ice
flood the narrow gutters
wasn’t my body
rescued, wasn’t it safe
didn’t the scar form, invisible
above the injury
terror and cold,
didn’t they just end, wasn’t the back garden
harrowed and planted—
I remember how the earth felt, red and dense,
in stiff rows, weren’t the seeds planted,
didn’t vines climb the south wall
I can’t hear your voice
for the wind’s cries, whistling over the bare ground
I no longer care
what sound it makes
when was I silenced, when did it first seem
pointless to describe that sound
what it sounds like can’t change what it is—
didn’t the night end, wasn’t the earth
safe when it was planted
didn’t we plant the seeds,
weren’t we necessary to the earth,
the vines, were they harvested?

2.
Summer after summer has ended,
balm after violence:
it does me no good
to be good to me now;
violence has changed me.
Daybreak. The low hills shine
ochre and fire, even the fields shine.
I know what I see; sun that could be
the August sun, returning
everything that was taken away—
You hear this voice? This is my mind’s voice;
you can’t touch my body now.
It has changed once, it has hardened,
don’t ask it to respond again.
A day like a day in summer.
Exceptionally still. The long shadows of the maples
nearly mauve on the gravel paths.
And in the evening, warmth. Night like a night in summer.
It does me no good; violence has changed me.
My body has grown cold like the stripped fields;
now there is only my mind, cautious and wary,
with the sense it is being tested.
Once more, the sun rises as it rose in summer;
bounty, balm after violence.
Balm after the leaves have changed, after the fields
have been harvested and turned.
Tell me this is the future,
I won’t believe you.
Tell me I’m living,
I won’t believe you.

3.
Snow had fallen. I remember
music from an open window.
Come to me, said the world.
This is not to say
it spoke in exact sentences
but that I perceived beauty in this manner.
Sunrise. A film of moisture
on each living thing. Pools of cold light
formed in the gutters.
I stood
at the doorway,
ridiculous as it now seems.
What others found in art,
I found in nature. What others found
in human love, I found in nature.
Very simple. But there was no voice there.
Winter was over. In the thawed dirt,
bits of green were showing.
Come to me, said the world. I was standing
in my wool coat at a kind of bright portal—
I can finally say
long ago; it gives me considerable pleasure. Beauty
the healer, the teacher—
death cannot harm me
more than you have harmed me,
my beloved life.

4.
The light has changed;
middle C is tuned darker now.
And the songs of morning sound over-rehearsed.
This is the light of autumn, not the light of spring.
The light of autumn: you will not be spared.
The songs have changed; the unspeakable
has entered them.
This is the light of autumn, not the light that says
I am reborn.
Not the spring dawn: I strained, I suffered, I was delivered.
This is the present, an allegory of waste.
So much has changed. And still, you are fortunate:
the ideal burns in you like a fever.
Or not like a fever, like a second heart.
The songs have changed, but really they are still quite beautiful.
They have been concentrated in a smaller space, the space of the mind.
They are dark, now, with desolation and anguish.
And yet the notes recur. They hover oddly
in anticipation of silence.
The ear gets used to them.
The eye gets used to disappearances.
You will not be spared, nor will what you love be spared.
A wind has come and gone, taking apart the mind;
it has left in its wake a strange lucidity.
How privileged you are, to be passionately
clinging to what you love;
the forfeit of hope has not destroyed you.
Maestoso, doloroso:
This is the light of autumn; it has turned on us.
Surely it is a privilege to approach the end
still believing in something.


5.
It is true there is not enough beauty in the world.
It is also true that I am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.
I am
at work, though I am silent.
The bland
misery of the world
bounds us on either side, an alley
lined with trees; we are
companions here, not speaking,
each with his own thoughts;
behind the trees, iron
gates of the private houses,
the shuttered rooms
somehow deserted, abandoned,
as though it were the artist’s
duty to create
hope, but out of what? what?
the word itself
false, a device to refute
perception— At the intersection,
ornamental lights of the season.
I was young here. Riding
the subway with my small book
as though to defend myself against
the same world:
you are not alone,
the poem said,
in the dark tunnel.


6.
The brightness of the day becomes
the brightness of the night;
the fire becomes the mirror.
My friend the earth is bitter; I think
sunlight has failed her.
Bitter or weary, it is hard to say.
Between herself and the sun,
something has ended.
She wants, now, to be left alone;
I think we must give up
turning to her for affirmation.
Above the fields,
above the roofs of the village houses,
the brilliance that made all life possible
becomes the cold stars.
Lie still and watch:
they give nothing but ask nothing.
From within the earth’s
bitter disgrace, coldness and barrenness
my friend the moon rises:
she is beautiful tonight, but when is she not beautiful?

by Louise Glück


Here is Mahler’s Der Einsame im Herbst ( The lonely one in fall.) Das Lied von der Erde.

1 Comments

Chicken Chatter

You’d think when you randomly google “chicken” you’d come up with good news, so direly needed at the end of this week. After all, a certain vice-presidential candidate claimed that his two kids eat 14 eggs every morning and then complained about the price of eggs being $4 a dozen, directly contradicted ($2.99) by the display he stood in front of while being filmed at a store in Pennsylvania. Hard to decide which of these two pieces of information is more out of touch with reality, but the latter was laid at the foot of the current administration, once again falsely blaming them.

So, chicken news. Here are literally the first 4 headlines that came up in a Google search:

Chickens lack the most basic legal protection.

Chickens are the most populous bird on Earth and are widely considered among the most abused animals on the planet. Despite their ability to think and feel, billions of chickens are raised and killed for food each year and subjected to some of the worst living and slaughter conditions imaginable to meet the increasing demand for meat worldwide.

I stopped reading after this. Remember, we want good news.

Do backyard chickens save you money?

In case you wondered, they don’t.

Truck traveling in Oklahoma loses chicken over a mile

What can I say. They sent troopers in to wrangle chickens on I-44….

Chickens attack tourists walking along pavement

Maybe that is the good news?

I give up. Enjoy your weekend, have brunch eating eggs Benedict, if you like them. I’ll go and see if I can find a red wheelbarrow to photograph. Maybe good thoughts will appear while staring at a “thing” rather than the news reports. After all, the poet linked below had a famous maxim, “No ideas but in things.”

The Red Wheelbarrow

So much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

BY WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS

“So much depends upon “? What is referred to? Maybe my sanity depends on it – here is a red bench. Red wheelbarrow next…

Music today is Jaco Pastorius and friends celebrating Chicken.

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How We Remember.

“But I have found that where there is a spiritual union with other people, the love one feels for them keeps the circle unbroken and the bonds between us and them strong, whether they are dead or alive. Perhaps that is one of the manifestations of heaven on earth.” – Alice Walker, Living by the Word: Selected Writings, 1973- 1987 as cited by Intisar Abioto.

Want to walk with me? I invite you to a place where we have been before, and then some steps beyond it. You will be taken in by the beauty of the landscape, and perhaps taken aback by what I encourage you to read, admittedly difficult, but important fare on the issue of memory politics.

Imagine a strong sun, still air as clear as can be, a deep blue river reflecting a cloudless sky, except for some contrails.

An ochre landscape, summer drought visible, resilient flora still hanging by a thread.

Hexagonal columns of Wanapum basalt flows that were scoured by the Ice Age floods some 10,000 years ago surround the lake, their darkness dissolving into myriads of colors from different species of lichen when you take a closer look.

We are on the Washington side of the Columbia river, a bit east of The Dalles bridge, at Columbia Hills Historical State Park, specifically Horsethief Lake. There is a public trail there, close by the railway, which offers a selection of petroglyphs moved from various places that were destroyed when damming the river began in earnest.

I have written about the history previously here.

Honor the Past, Respect the Present.

This time around I was invited to a private visit of petroglyphs that are only accessible in the company of a tribal guide. The trail winds through shrub-steppe and in parallel to the river’s shoreline, and brings you to petroglyphs that are still located on their original surfaces of basalt rock. The most famous among them is Tsagaglalal (“She Who Watches”.)

It is said that the trickster-hero Coyote put her there with luminous eyes and a broad face, when she, a chief of the Chinook tribe, worried what would happen to her people when she could no longer look out for them. Before he tricked her, he insisted there would be no longer female chiefs in the future, and then, having put her into rock, he said “…now you shall stay here forever to watch over your people and the river…” According to some sources,  “She Who Watches” they called her. She became a symbol of conscience and of death. “She sees you when you come,” they said, “she sees you when you go.” 

I was thinking of what I had learned earlier about petroglyphs from Lillian Pitt:

“Petroglyphs/pictographs are not art. They are sacred images that represent significant cultural themes, messages, beliefs to a Tribe.  They were not created for aesthetic purposes.  They were created to teach, warn, or record those not yet born.  Even though we may think that they are pretty, beautiful, pleasant to look at, those are not the values inherent in the images you see.  those are the values that you as the viewer are placing on the image. Please stop calling them rock art. “

I was also painfully aware how little historical knowledge we have in general – when my Native American friend and guide did a land acknowledgement by means of unfolding a rope where every millimeter stood for a year of historical Native American existence in these parts, I could only marvel at the numbers expressed in unending length.

We know, of course, only what we are taught, and teaching about Native American History has been overall a sad affair, when you look at general public education. Here is a comprehensive article on the need for reform. Things are changing, slowly, with curricula developed and available from private and public sources, like the Native Knowledge 360º Project initiated by the National Museum of the American Indian. Tribal members themselves have always kept the memory alive and transmitted to next generations. It is no coincidence, that a recent Tsagaglalal (She Who Watches) Scholarship was established in 2022 in honor of Lillian Pitt (Warm Springs/Wasco/Yakama), who was instrumental in teaching tribal history as an artist, mentor and advocate.

Looking at the landscape, at these sacred images that convey a message, at the spottiness of my understanding of American history, I could not help but think of memory culture from my own, very different background. The immediate source for these thoughts circled around the October 7th anniversary of the Hamas attack and subsequent Israeli war actions. Two very different essays I read around the politics of memory related to the fate of the Jewish and the Palestinian/Arab/Lebanese/Syrian people have me still think long and hard. Written by an anti-Zionist Jewish intellectual and activist, Naomi Klein, and a Zionist Jewish novelist, Dara Horn, respectively, they outline assumptions about appropriation of Holocaust narratives and memory culture that can harm rather than elucidate the complexities of history (links to the essays under the authors’ names). Long and complicated, but truly important work that will open perspectives you might not otherwise come across.

The core that spoke to me was Klein’s analysis of the politics of mourning (and is easily transferable to historical conflicts of all kinds of cultures, our own destruction of Native American tribes included):

“When experts in mass atrocities speak of the importance of “bearing witness”, they are referring to a specific way of seeing. This kind of witnessing, often of crimes that have been long denied or suppressed by powerful states, is an act of refusal – a refusal of that denial. It is also a way to honour the dead, both by keeping their stories alive, and by enlisting their spirits in a project of justice-seeking to prevent a repeat of similar atrocities in the future.

But not all witnessing is done in this spirit. Sometimes witnessing is itself a form of denial, marshalled by savvy states to form the justification for other, far greater atrocities. Narrow and hyper-directed at one’s own in-group, it becomes a way to avoid looking at the harsh realities of those atrocities, or of actively justifying them. This witnessing is more like hiding, and at its most extreme, it can provide rationalizations for genocide.” (Ref.)

Much to contemplate during these days of Teshuvah, the days of repentance leading up to Yom Kippur, our holiest day. A time to contemplate ways of ethical being. Maybe the love one feels for others keeps the circle unbroken, as Alice Walker stated above, but so does true, non-performative mourning – whether they are dead or alive, those victims of hatred and genocidal fury.

Here is Max Bruch’s Kol Nidre. (Unfortunately there is an interruption by advertising at some point, but it can be prompts skipped. I just favor this performance by Argerich enough that I was willing to tolerate it.)

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When Hope is Hard.

· Kintsugi: The Restorative Art of Naoko Fukumaru at Portland Japanese Garden ·

From: Kawaranai Sora: Nakinagara Warainagara (The Sky Unchanged: Tears and Smiles) 

Fall has arrived at Portland Japanese Garden. Yellowing leaves and needles shine golden when touched by the sun, moss glows chartreuse in the cracks of the stones where it prefers to settle, accentuating the imperfections of the otherwise smooth surfaces. I cannot imagine a more appropriate setting for the exhibition currently on show at the garden’s Pavilion Gallery and Tanabe Gallery.

Kintsugi: The Restorative Art of Naoko Fukumaru is mirroring the sights from the fall garden – attention-grabbing gold and an openness to blemishes rather than perfection of any given object. In addition, the artist offers us much more, introducing general ideas about Japanese philosophy as well as universal approaches to healing, so direly needed in a world torn apart by division and war, in desperate want of mending.

Kin means gold in Japanese, and Tsugi refers to the joining of parts. Fukumaru takes broken vessels or other damaged objects and restores their original shape as much as possible. Rather than hiding the restorative efforts, the contours of the breaks are accentuated with gold dust, now shimmering veins traversing the pottery. The mending consists of a multi-step, time-consuming procedure, applying multiple layers of the Japanese lacquer urushi, a highly allergenic resin derived from the urushi tree, mixing it with powdered gold or silver, and eventual polishing the joined surfaces at the seam.

Some say that Kintsugi can be traced back to Ashikaga Yoshimasa, a shogun of the 15th century. He sent a favorite broken Chinese tea bowl back to China for repair and did not like the outcome at all. Japanese artisans were instructed to develop a more aesthetically pleasing way to restore broken ceramics. The result was Kintsugi.

The essence of the approach is to convey the history of a given object and the beauty found in its imperfection. Mending reconstitutes what has been broken, with visible scars a reminder of the care we extend to what has suffered, and our belief that underneath it is still whole, now even more beautiful. The technique is clearly in line with a more general Japanese philosophy, that of Wabi Sabi. In the most basic form (admittedly my level of understanding), it acknowledges three simple realities:

Nothing lasts, nothing is finished, and nothing is perfect.

Wabi refers to the essence of simplification, of cutting down the things to that which is important, whereas Sabi refers to the passage of time, and more specifically to the fact that the core of something remains the same, even though the facade or surface may change over time (Ref.).

Blue Moon (2023)

Samanid Empire, Nishapur pottery, ca. 10th -12th C. – Repaired with resin, calcium carbonate, 24K gold.

Fukumaru grew up in a third-generation antiques dealer family in Kyoto, Japan. She trained as a restoration expert for glass and ceramics in England and is in high international demand by elite institutions and museums to bring blemished pieces back to perfection. Her turn to Kintsugi happened by chance some 5 years ago, during an exceedingly difficult period in her personal life. She is now counted among the masters of the art form. Creating art that focussed on a narrative of resilience had a therapeutic effect. This is obviously true for all good therapies: we establish meaning through a close look at our history, we focus on what has been overcome, rather than what was harmed, and in the process nourish hope and emphasize strength simultaneously.

The very idea that scars can be beautiful and proud emblems of survival is empowering during times when hope is hard. However changed, the essence of us moves on.

The ceramics on display come from various parts of the world, different cultures and different time periods, all broken in one way or another, discarded from quotidian use, and now restored.

Dreaming in The Blue (2023) (detail)

Kashan Persian earthenware, ca. 11th – mid 1 4th C – Repaired with resin, calcium carbonate, urushi, and 24K gold.

Each vessel has its own story to tell, often helped by explanatory titles. The artist put some back together with added beauty,

combined others with found objects,

Born This Way – Driftwood (2023) Imari porcelain, ca. 1820-1860

Born This Way – Unwanted (2023)

Imari porcelain, ca. 1820-1860 Repaired with resin, urushi, and 24K gold

“Naturally degraded over time, unusually shaped driftwood interacts with human-made ceramics deformed from the extreme heat of the kiln. Both have undergone a journey of transformation, exhibiting an unintentional beauty forged beyond human control. Fukumaru’s Born This Way series looks into the harmony between human and nature’s creations, conveying arguments for what true beauty is in our modern world.” (Display Signage)

and experimented with more ceramic embellishments for a third grouping, adding elements of sculpture.

Beautiful Trauma – Persian Jug (2023) Persian terracotta jug, ca. 1200 – 800 BCE – Repaired with resin, urushi, 24K gold, and plaster “Crystals require high heat, pressure, and time to form. Fukumaru’s motivation behind this piece was transforming negative experiences into something empowering. Conserving the ancient and porous ceramic fragments of the Persian jug was delicate and time-consuming work to which she added dozens of individually cast crystal forms that were carefully refined, assembled, and attached. Created over many months, the process took on meaning: for each scar that heals, a crystal forms as evidence of surmounting hardship.” (Display Signage.)

Her art challenges the viewer to find meaning – as all good art does. The artist herself stresses the therapeutic value of retroactively working through trauma, and coming up healed on the other end. I could not agree more: her work exemplifies resilience. The aesthetics of scar visibility also reminded me of a related approach that we have started to see amongst survivors of surgical trauma, in particular breast cancer. Many women these days opt not for reconstructive surgery, but put striking tattoos over their mastectomy scars, a sign of acceptance of a new kind of beauty born from fear and pain that is overcome. My own relationship with scars, perhaps explaining my intense affinity to Fukumaru’s work, started early. Two symmetrical, L-shaped scars from lung surgery on my 16 years-old back were eventually accepted rather than self-consciously loathed through the beauty of healing words: a friend dryly commented, “I see, that’s where they cut off your wings.” Not that an angelic existence beckoned, but I never had problems with scars again. Embellished acknowledgment healed.

The possibility of reemergence from existential destruction is, of course, particularly poignant for a nation who lived through the horrors of Hiroshima and the 3.11 catastrophe, when on March 11, 2011, an earthquake struck off the coast of Japan, triggering a tsunami that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of residents of the Tohoku region in the northeastern part of the country, which in turn caused a partial meltdown of one of the reactors of the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Fukushima Prefecture. Various forms of art revealed the perseverance of the Japanese people working through trauma. Tanka poetry proliferated, describing ordinary people’s reactions and approaches to healing. Filmmakers captured the determination to overcome disaster. Here is my favorite short by Isamu Hirabayashi, a brilliant monologue of a cicada that survived the 66 years between the two disasters. It acknowledges that nothing lasts forever in face of catastrophe, but that forward movement is required to the very last moment.

***

We live in this culture of endless extraction and disposal: extraction from the earth, extraction from people’s bodies, from communities, as if there’s no limit, as if there’s no consequence to how we’re taking and disposing, and as if it can go on endlessly. We are reaching the breaking point on multiple levels. Communities are breaking, the planet is breaking, people’s bodies are breaking. We are taking too much. – Naomi Klein  This changes everything (2014)

Back to the art on hand: the Kintsugi process does not just alert to the retroactive implications of healing, but also the proactive value of mending: preserving something in a world that is bent on overconsumption, the lure of the ever new.

Whether it is fashion or the production of cheap household goods, these days we encounter cycles of fast creation and quick discarding. We are caught in a mode of linear production. The line goes from extraction of the resources needed to manufacture a good, to production, to distribution, to consumption, and finally, to disposal. Eventually the resources we extract will run out and disposal of the evermore accumulating waste existentially harms the planet’s health.

What Fukumaru does for ceramics, many fabric artists do for those things that we consume and discard the most, clothing: rather than throwing things out, they are visibly elevated to works of art, by embroidery or other forms of visible mending. In fact the visible mending movement (the link provides multiple examples of the art form) often employs golden threads, and consciously refers to Kintsugi as a model for restoration. The Dutch fashion collective Painted Series, for example, started a non-profit clothing brand called GOLDEN JOINERY, where people were invited to repair garments with golden thread, showing the rips instead of hiding them. These fabric arts are also closely related to another gift Japanese crafters gave to the world: Sashiko, a Japanese mending technique involving a running stitch and geometric patterns.

Melting Sun (2021)

Excavated stoneware by Michael Henry, ca. 1970s – Repaired with textile, threads, and resin

“Sashiko, a traditional Japanese technique that uses embroidery to functionally reinforce fabric, inspired this piece. Fukumaru fused thousands of her hand stitches with a recovered bowl by Canadian potter, Mick (Michael)Henry. The stitches represent the manmade tension and strains on our world in contrast to the rustic clay bowl.” (Display Signage)

What we are really talking about here is a form of upcycling, when we change a linear system to a circular one, by reclaiming what already exists, and refashioning it into something that has more value: upcycling discarded clothes into new ones, or into different objects, or incorporating them into art. Upcycling broken pottery into restored vessels, or into different configurations, works of art. Fukumaru’s creative output, in other words, does not solely affect our concept of resilience, but also reminds us of the importance of sustainability.

Nothing lasts. Nothing is finished. Nothing is perfect.

Yet we can buy time, extend the life span, change our perspective on the value of imperfection. We can trust that some core will remain constant, even in the face of appearance change. This is true for pottery, for our emergence from trauma and loss, for the ravages of aging.

And it is particularly true for gardens: seasons and their respective offerings don’t last. No work is ever finished. All striving for perfection a futile exercise. Yet they are the very model of resilience and sustainability if we take care to restore them, nurture them, make the changing beauty visible for all to apprehend.

Go see for yourself. Gold awaits.

Portland Japanese Garden

Kintsugi: The Restorative Art of Naoko Fukumaru  

September 28th, 2024 – January 27th, 2025

LOCATION: PAVILION GALLERY & TANABE GALLERY

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Der Erlkönig

· Beyond the Treeline ·

One of the most amazing pieces of music from the romantic period is a song written by Franz Schubert ((1797-1828), The Erl-King or Elf-King. It sets a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) to music, words that were based on a medieval Danish ballad, Elveskud. The narrative describes the night ride of a father carrying his feverish child on his galloping horse. The child fearfully tells his father that he sees the Erl-King, a metaphor for death, but is calmly and rationally told that it is just the wind, fog, trees and darkness that scare him. The Erl-King, after trying to lure the child with promises of toys and amusement, eventually threatens to take the boy by force, and the father gets increasingly anxious, realizing that the vision is not just a hallucination. When they arrive at home, the boy is dead in his arms.

Every school child of my generation had to learn the poem by heart, having no clue what it was all about other than a horror story. It contains many of the elements so important to the Romanticists: nature, death, the supernatural. Goethe certainly knew about fear of death as a youngster – he fought tuberculosis for two long years before he even turned twenty. Schubert’s composition manages to capture dread with changes in key and tempo, as well as introducing 4 distinct voices with different melodies, ranges and key changes alternating between major and minor keys. There is the narrator who frames the story at beginning and end, and then alternating vocalizations of the father, the kid and the Erlkönig. A fifth personality – the horse – is represented by the piano with a relentless, pounding rhythm throughout for the right hand (and the score specifies every single move the accompanist has to take, incredibly thought-out and rigid. The whole things comprises three or so minutes, a good thing too, otherwise your right hand would fall off.)

To this day I know very few pieces that embody dread, particularly the dread of an innocent child that senses death, as well as this song. It gave me goose-bumps as a child. Now the fear of being a helpless parent is more prominent – trying to distance yourself from the realization that horror lurks, and wanting to protect the child (as well as yourself) from that reality, to no avail.

The photomontage is an older one that I recently added to the series of images representing music that matters to me. It captures a torso of a young child surrounded by birches and alders (the “Erl” in Erlkönig is the German word for an alder tree: Erle. Unclear if Goethe ignored the Danish “Elven”, or it was a translation error. My speculation would be that he wanted to stage the eeriness of the moors where alders grow at the damp places. But what do I know.)

I photographed these very trees on the grounds of the former concentration camp Bergen-Belsen, a camp where so many Jewish children died of disease and starvation, as did their parents, eventually. (52.000 human beings, as a matter of fact, 13.000 of those after liberation of the camp, too starved to recover.)

How does a parent, themselves aware of the inescapability of potential death, protect the last weeks of their children? The history has renewed relevance for us, given the unrestrained rise in anti-semitism, both In Germany and here in the U.S. – an unrestrained rise fueled by unrestrained language encouraging violence against Jews, preemptively blaming them for election losses, and throwing out dogwhistles (serial numbers for to-be- deported immigrants was the latest in Floridian fantasizing, evoking tattoos of the Holocaust, and publicly welcoming fascist ideologues. Here is an overview article in The Atlantic about anti-semitism of the upper echelons of the American right wing. Read it and weep.

I weep also when I think of the mothers and fathers in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon desperately trying to find some fashion of normal life for their children among the bombs and the hunger and the disease. It is they to whom the children turn, like the boy in the poem besieges his father, expecting comforting and protection. And it is they who cannot explain that all the laws we thought would protect us, have been cast aside, are ignored, or scoffed at, on all sides.

U.N. experts, for example, consider exploding pager and radios a terrifying violation of international law.

“Simultaneous attacks by thousands of devices would inevitably violate humanitarian law, by failing to verify each target, and distinguish between protected civilians and those who could potentially be attacked for taking a direct part in hostilities….Such attacks could constitute war crimes of murder, attacking civilians, and launching indiscriminate attacks, in addition to violating the right to life,” the experts said. Humanitarian law additionally prohibits the use of booby-traps disguised as apparently harmless portable objects where specifically designed and constructed with explosives – and this could include a modified civilian pager, the experts said. A booby-trap is a device designed to kill or injure, that functions unexpectedly when a person performs an apparently safe act, such as answering a pager. It is also a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians, including to intimidate or deter them from supporting an adversary,” the experts warned. “A climate of fear now pervades everyday life in Lebanon,” they said.”

Legal experts in the US disagree with each other whether law violations occurred with these booby-traps (Ref.), but nobody disputes that Israel defies the orders from the U.N. top Court to halt its military offensive in Gaza, after South Africa accused it of genocide.

Many argue that targeted attacks against the militants of Hamas or Hezbollah are justified in a war. Civilian casualties are seen as an inevitable side effect and within the boundaries of international law, justified by the warring factions in pursuit of their strategic goals. That cannot, however, count for actions that affect civilian populations most grievously and indiscriminately.

The Gazan children are starving. Over 50.000 children ages 6 months to 4 years are in urgent need of treatment for malnutrition. Israel deliberately blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to our own government authorities, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.  

“USAID had sent Blinken a detailed 17-page memo on Israel’s conduct. The memo described instances of Israeli interference with aid efforts, including killing aid workers, razing agricultural structures, bombing ambulances and hospitals, sitting on supply depots and routinely turning away trucks full of food and medicine.”

“Separately, the head of the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration had also determined that Israel was blocking humanitarian aid and that the Foreign Assistance Act should be triggered to freeze almost $830 million in taxpayer dollars earmarked for weapons and bombs to Israel, according to emails obtained by ProPublica.” (Ref.)

Secretary Blinken and President Biden disregarded the assessment, since it would have stopped us from sending bombs to Israel, per the law. Here are the details from an investigation by ProPublica published yesterday. Aid organizations across the world agree with the original plea by our agencies: CARE, Oxfam and multiple others warn about a humanitarian disaster because of Israel’s obstruction of aid: food, water, medicine. The U.N. General Assembly concurs. Here is the report of their special rapporteur.

What do you tell your child, all over the world, when the Erl-King calls and there’s not a morsel to eat?

Here is a different iteration of the song – above I had linked to Ian Bostridge, here is Fischer Dieskau.

Who rides at a gallop through night so wild? It is the father with his dear child.
He grips the boy firmly in his arms,
He holds him safe, he keeps him warm.

‘Son, why do you cower so fearfully?’ ‘Father, the Erl-king! Can you not see? The dreadful Erl-king with crown and tail?’ ‘My son, it is mist blown by the gale.’

‘You lovely child, come away with me, We’ll play together down by the sea; Such pretty flowers grow on the shore, My mother has golden robes in store.’

‘My father, my father, oh do you not hear What the Erl-king whispers into my ear?’ ‘Be calm, stay calm, it’s nothing my child But dry leaves blown by the wind so wild.’

‘My fine young lad, won’t you come away?
My daughters are waiting for you to play;
My daughters will lead the dance through the night, And sing and rock you until you sleep tight.’

‘My father, my father, can you still not see
The Erl-king’s daughters waiting for me?’
‘My son, my son, I can see quite clear
The moon on the willows, there’s nothing else there.’

‘I love you my boy, you are such a delight; And I’ll take you by force if you put up a fight.’ ‘My father, my father, he’s gripping me fast! The Erl-king is hurting! Help me, I’m lost!’

The father shudders, and speeds through the night, In his arms he holds the moaning boy tight;
At last he arrives, to home and bed:
In the father’s arms the child was dead.

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How to make women not vote again.

***

This Floridian communication came in close to midnight at the start of the weekend. Stepford Wives? Handmaids’ Tales?

Happy lives? Not if the SAVE Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act) returns for vote like a bad penny, having failed to pass once, so far. You might have heard what this Republican-demanded Act is all about: it attempts to add further measures to prevent illegal immigrants and other noncitizens from voting in federal elections.

Except: we already have legislation for that.

The wording of the SAVE act slickly allows to question voter registrations of an entirely different constituency: married women. If a married woman with a name change wants to vote, she will need to show either a passport or other proof of citizenship with her name on it, or must produce both a birth certificate (with the seal of the state where it was issued; no copies allowed) and a current form of identification—both with the exact same name on them.

That could instantly disqualify about 90 percent of all married women without passports or other proof that matches their birth certificates or proof of a legal name change.

Here is a report  by the National Organization for Women on how Republican voter suppression efforts harm women.

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, one third of all women have citizenship documents that do not identically match their current names primarily because of name changes at marriage. Roughly 90 percent of women who marry adopt their husband’s last name. 

That means that roughly 90 percent of married female voters have a different name on their ID than the one on their birth certificate. An estimated 34 percent of women could be turned away from the polls unless they have precisely the right documents. And since this is a proposed federal law, states cannot protect against a Presidential effort to purge the voter rolls from women.(Ref.)

According to the Center for American Women and Politics, Women have registered and voted at higher rates than men in every presidential election since 1980, with the turnout gap between women and men growing slightly larger with each successive presidential election. They also tend to lean more liberal than their male cohort. And that was before their right to bodily autonomy and healthcare decisions was taken away by radical Republicans.

Some extremist voices even question the 19th Amendment, having given women the right to vote some 100 years ago, but our participation can obviously be curtailed by administrative, political tricks rather than a change to the Constitution.

What will come next?

Music about women marching. Not backwards, either.

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Art on the Road: A Crossover of Art and Nature.

· Pacific Threshold: Sandgren & Sandgren- Painting the Oregon Coast with Friends 1978-2023 ·

Merriam-Webster: Threshold, noun

Just my luck. The randomly picked day for a visit to the Giustina Gallery at Oregon State University in Corvallis turned out to be move-in day for the students. Go Beavers! And their parents! And about every car in Oregon clogging the streets and making parking near impossible to find. No regrets, though. I soon left the chaos and the cacophony of competing marching band practices behind, entering a world that transported me quickly to a very different place.

Erik Sandgren Wreck of the Peter Iredale and Cape Disappointment Fort Stevens State Park 2014

On display until October 25, 2024 is an extravagant collection of works by numerous artists all centered around imagery found along the length of the Oregon Coast: Pacific Threshold: Sandgren & Sandgren- Painting the Oregon Coast with Friends 1978-2023. The selected paintings, watercolors and charcoals emerged from over 40 years of summer painting sessions at the coast, organized by Nelson Sandgren, a painter and printmaker who taught at Oregon State University for thirty-eight years, from 1948 until 1986. He was joined by his son, Erik Sandgren, who continued to keep the PaintOuts alive and kicking, while he taught art at college level and established a track record as one of Oregon’s most noted and collected painters in his own right.

Dee Vadnais Ecola Arch Ecola State Park 2019

I had written about the experience of being at a PaintOut previously; Sandgren opens a window into that world in more detail here. It is worthwhile reading his description either before or after you visit the exhibition, because it puts a context around the presented art that will make it easier to grasp the variety of works on display. Some are at the threshold of notable artworks, others have long crossed that line. Some capture the threshold between land and sea, others focus on a threshold where visual objects are translated into psychological experiences, (for both painter and this viewer, I should add.)

Anthony James Cotham Driftwood Shelter at Seal Rock Seal Rock State Park 2009

Curated around the geographical locations defining the coast, the salon-style – hung works allow you to peruse familiar and unfamiliar vistas, depending on your travel habits. Much joy in recognizing familiar scenery. The fact that different media are bunched together, diversity further emphasized by individual framing choices that eventually blend together in a lively fashion, sharpens the sense that we encounter here a collective at work. They all hone in on the way nature shapes the coast, shapes our perceptions, and informs ways of expression that need not be literal, although representationalism is the most frequent mode in this show.

Here is a helpful list of those artists exhibiting as well as of participants in the annual workshops. Those showing were invited to maximize the range of styles on display. As Sandgren told me, the goal was to present all possible styles, from abstract to expressionist to impressionist and California neoimpressionist approaches, all tackling a unified subject matter. The only regret of the exposition was the lighting – the rather dark rooms have plenty of spot lights directed at the art work. Since most of it is behind glass, as aquarelle and charcoals must be, the glare is a nuisance.

That said, there are interesting observations of how the styles of the teachers influenced those of the participating students and colleagues in some cases, and how others found quite independent voices while still adhering to the shared value: the connection to, appreciation of, and love for nature. I should add that there are also a number of perceptive nods to the fishing industry,

Nelson Sandgren Summer Harboring Depoe Bay Motif Depoe Bay

Carol Norton Yates Coos Bay Boat Repair Charleston 1985 — Susan Trueblood Stuart Yaquina Harbor Newport 1985

Erik Sandgren On the Hard at Port Orford Port Orford 2017

or the visual beauty of structures that define the coastal regions, bridges and light houses.

Bets Cole Yaquina Light Yaquina Head

Netson Sandgren Cape Blanco Light Cape Blanco — Erik Sandgren Visionary Light at Cape Blanco Cape Blanco 2017

In fact, there was barely a seascape that did not have some structural element prominently in view, rather than solely waves and water. Contrast helps visual definition, I guess. Who knows, maybe there will be soon another J.M. Turner in the making…. those unmatched seascapes that transferred the threshold between land and water into that of water and sky.

Erik Sandgren Barview Jetty Tillamook Bay 2010

Nelson Sandgren Florence Dunes Honeyman State Park 2000

I was particularly drawn to the many and varied depictions of trees. The rainforests along the coast have some of the toughest conditions of survival, battered by winds, salt water and rapidly changing temperatures. Artists captured the defiant nature of these gnarly giants well.

Debby Sundbaum-Sommers Sea Dragon Shore Acres State Park 2019

Susan DeRosa Overlapping, In the Woods Neptune State Scenic Viewpoint 2017— Gretchen Vadnais Big Spruce Newport

Cynthia Jacobi Grove at Neptune State Park Neptune State Scenic Vewpoint 2023 —Sally Bolton Resting Spot Cape Perpetua 2023

Threshold is often defined as beginning, and the PaintOut gatherings were certainly something new and obviously very desirable. They gathered a community of like-minded artists, with the shared commitment likely pushing individual participants over their own thresholds of insecurity regarding their art, or their threshold of willingness to get up regularly and defy the weather, something much harder when it is just yourself out there.

Nelson Sandgren Rocky Creek Rocky Creek Scenic Viewpoint: 2000 — Humberto Gonzales Rocky Creek Rocky Creek Scenic Viewpoint: 2007

Threshold is also the point where a psychological effect emerges, if certain variables all come together. The accumulation of paintings, so many all in one spot, really enhanced rather than detracted from the appreciation of any individual one. Just like the coast surrounds you with multiple varied stimuli, the light, noise, smells and sensory experience of the wind and rain, the depictions congregated into a representational landscape of their own.

Robin Berry Tide Tossed Seal Rock State Park

Jim Shull Elephant Rock 2 Seal Rock State Park 2005

Congregation, come to think of it, is an applicable term for the community of artists who, summer after summer, spend time together painting, critiquing, encouraging and learning from each other. Not a religious fervor, but a fervor nonetheless for capturing nature, pushing an individual’s experience across a threshold into artistic depiction. Makes one jealous in a world ever more bent on isolation.

Leland John Nelson and Friends at Bandon Bandon 2002

Here they were, some time ago, painting together, and each other. I photographed subsequent generations two years ago.

At least we can share the output. If you can’t make it to Corvallis to visit and explore this treasure trove, there is a book that serves as the catalogue for the exhibition. It is available on site or can be ordered here.

————————————

Pacific Threshold: Sandgren & Sandgren- Painting the Oregon Coast with Friends 1978-2023

Exhibit Dates: Monday, September 9, 2024 to Friday, October 25, 2024

The Giustina Gallery: 875 SW 26th St., Corvallis, Oregon, 97331.

GALLERY HOURS:

The LaSells Stewart Center, Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., unless in private event use.

Please confirm your date and hours to ensure access.

Susan Rudisill Conversation on the Cobbles Neptune State Scenic Viewpoint 2016

Title image : Erik Sandgren Drift Log Fort Seal Rock State Park 2023

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New York Adjacent.

Sometimes you wonder – prominent art website announces fall line up for “art adjacent” events in NYC.

What is mentioned? Dance at the Whitney. Edges of Ailey will include over 90 live dance performances, classes, and engaging talks held in the museum’s third-floor theater, honoring the legacy of the legendary choreographer. Here is a blurb from the museum website about one of the performances I would no doubt want to see, if I still went into theaters…

DEATHBED: Trajal Harrell remembers the African American choreographer, dancer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham (1909–2006), who toured the world in the 1940s and ’50s and developed a technique based on dances from African and Afro-Caribbean cultures as well as Vodun, ballet, jazz, and modern dance. Harrell wonders about Dunham’s relationship to the Japanese choreographer and dancer Tatsumi Hijikata (1928–1986), who is known today as one of the founders of the postwar Japanese dance Butoh and has been a major influence on Harrell’s work.

Art or Art adjacent: Dance?

Images from the Whitney terrace where Ailey’s work will be performed.

***

Next up: a Procession of Angels for Radical Love and Unity, organized by the photographer, performance artist and 2023 MacArthur Genius Grant recipient María Magdalena Campos-Pons, will happen on September 20. Artists and the public will walk through Manhattan with stops at sites significant to Black, Cuban, and Cuban American communities, ending at Madison Square Park with a concert by Daymé Arocena. Here is a clip of her singing in Havana, Cuba, and here a longer concert from 5 years ago, best listened to without looking at the screen I find, too distracting a background. She has a phenomenal voice. Lots of poets performing during this march as well, so I ask:

Art or Art adjacent: Poetry?

Images from the African Burial National Monument on Duane St. As I have written elsewhere about this site that memorializes the dead slaves of NY, the second larges slave holding city after Charleston, SC:

15,000 to 20,000 in a “Negroes Burial Ground” then,  and what do you see now?  A strange little memorial, that does not really evoke the horrors of slavery and untimely death (scientists analyzed the bones of the 400 + skeletons they unearthed and found severe malnutrition, wounds from violence and for women childbirth to be the grim reaper. ) What was evoked for me, instead, was disgust when contrasting the modesty of this site with the close-by extravaganza of the 9/11 memorial. The burial ground plaza feels cowering under the surrounding buildings with an artificial quietness as if it does not want to complain loudly.  The use of very reflective materials means that the present day world imprints itself on the monument speckling it with harsh light and reflections, as if full blackness cannot be tolerated.  But at least the fight for declaring coveted Manhattan real estate as a National Monument was won.

***

Last but not least: Film scores played live by the New York Philharmonic, while the movies are shown – John Williams, of course, wouldn’t you’ve guessed it? Jaws will attract plenty of visitors keen on reliving the blockbusters of their youth, as will The Empire strikes Back. Lure with the familiar, rather than truly amazing unfamiliar music made for films that never had the impact as those blockbusters. They could have chosen Ennio Morricone’s score for the 1986 film The Mission, here played by Yo-Yo Ma. Ok, I’m a fan of Morricone. What about The Power of the Dog? Here’s the soundtrack, composed by (Radiohead’s) Johnny Greenwood, with clear echoes of his fascination with Krzysztof Penderecki. Beautiful music. Disquieting too, like so much in that film. (I reviewed the film here.)

Art or Art adjacent: Music?

Images from Harlem, with various theaters and the Langston Hughes House.

***

And to top it off: in the middle of Art Net’s fall recommendations pops up a shout out for a soon to be opened bakery on 1, Ludlow St: Elbow Bread.

Art adjacent: pastries!

In any case, lots of exciting things coming up. Photographs from my old haunts relevant to some of the communities called upon to participate in the Procession. Wish I could be there with my friends.

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In the Interesting People Department …

· When the Frost is on the Punkin ·

Since I photograph and write about what I see and what I think three times a week, year after year (eight years, can you believe it?), there is some inevitable repetition. That is simply because I have been living in the same place for decades, and across the seasons I observe the same things that make their annual appearance. Magnolias in the spring, sunflowers and meadows in the summer, pumpkins and mushrooms in the fall, and eventually the song birds in the snow of my garden. Let’s not forget the frequent repeat of racism, xenophobia and other political recurrences, but that is not today’s concern. We have reached the pumpkin stage, and another scratching of head as to how make it feel fresh, eight years on.

As luck would have it, I came across a video of someone reciting a pumpkin poem with skill and passion deserving a thespian award. The poem’s author turns out to be a fascinating character, a rags-to-riches success story built on fumes, certain talents and an intuitive understanding of the needs of the masses. I had never heard of him, stunned to learn that he was the nation’s most read poet at the beginning of the 20th century.

James Whitcomb Riley (1849—1916) was born in Indiana, and likely considered a black sheep by his lawyer father, a member of the Indiana House of Representatives, since he wiggled out of formal education at an early age, getting into nothing but trouble in school. Instead he started selling bibles, and got paid for painting advertisement signs onto barns and fences while traveling with a patent-medicine show, all the while trying to get his verses published and into greater circulation. He was a real huckster, telling lies to sell the tonics, and submitting his poems as long-lost ones of Edgar Allen Poe, soon debunked and causing a scandal that provided notoriety.

Riley became an alcoholic at an early age after falling out with his father once the latter had succumbed to financial ruin after returning wounded from the Civil War. Lying, cheating and alcohol-infuses anger resulted in break-ups of all of his love-relationships as well, across his life time. The writer started to tour with local theatre companies, still earning a living by painting advertisements, and eventually got hired by a newspaper to write society column, report on local events and submit poetry. Most serious publication refused to print his sentimental poems, but people started to flock to his performances of his work, almost always in dialect and covering romantic versions of longed-for times past. The readings were dramatic and comedic, the audiences loved it. His tours extended from the Mid-West to other parts of the country, and he started to achieve national fame. Fights and lawsuits with his partners and agents brought more notoriety, all strangely helping with sales of his books, making him eventually a wealthy man.

He met with President Grover Cleveland and supported Harrison in his election campaign. When the latter won the Presidency he suggested to make Riley Poet Laureate, but Congress did not comply. Alcohol-related health problems led to an end to Riley’s touring in the late 1800s. By then he had turned to writing poetry for children, with little quality left for his previous types of work, even though popular sentiment still gobbled up what he now published from his early years, dug up from the dust bin. His complete life-works was published in a series of multiple volumes, and honorary Ivy League (!) degrees started to roll in, including doctorates from Yale and Penn. John Singer Sargent painted his portrait. In 1908 he was elected a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters with a special medal for poetry awarded in 1912.

He was known as the Hoosier Poet, whose reflections on small-town life and “Every Man”‘s problems clearly resonated with a large public. He was funny, bent, strangely lucky in his divers endeavors, and at the same time a tragic figure who succumbed to the consequences of alcoholism. Peter Revell once wrote Riley’s dialect was more like the poor speech of a child rather than the dialect of his region. Does it matter? I think what is relevant here is that Riley was a minstrel, a performer, an entertainer. He had a musical ear, clearly echoed in his craft. In that regard I am reminded of Amanda Gorman, the young woman whose poetry is offered at important events of the Democratic party. Her poems rise when hearing them performed (and not so much when read… )

Live entertainment is what people craved in an age before mass media, stunned by someone who memorized up to 40 poems per performance on the lecture circuit, flocking to his shows by the thousands and buying the books afterwards by the millions. It was egalitarian poetry, if bad one, brought to the masses. It is hard for me to understand how a public, just 15 years out of the Civil War, could so much long for “the good old times,” but apparently they did and he served their nostalgia well, a populist to the core. Sounds familiar?

So, I urge you to spend the three minutes it takes to listen to today’s choice of poetry. (No music today, alas, so your time can be spent on the recitation.) The text can be found below. As it happens, I agree with the sentiment, fall as a season of contentment, and a nice time to let go if so asked, spared yet another harsh winter. Riley was not granted that wish – he died on July 22, 1916.

When the Frost is on the Punkin

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’ of the guineys, and the cluckin’ of the hens,
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O, it’s then’s the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s something kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here—
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees,
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries—kindo’ lonesome-like, but still
A-preachin’ sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below—the clover over-head!—
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin’ ’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too! …
I don’t know how to tell it—but ef sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me—
I’d want to ’commodate ’em—all the whole-indurin’ flock—
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

Since pumpkins, fruit belonging to the family of Cucurbita like cucumbers and melons, are 92% water and the poem speaks of frost, today’s imagery is an icy white….

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