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“ARTEMISpoetry” and the gift of Pascale Petit

Pascale Petit (b. 1953), London-based poet and artist
Pascale Petit (b. 1953), London-based poet and artist

“To visit you Father, I wear a mask of fire ants.
When I sit waiting for you to explain . . .”
Self-Portrait with Fire Ants by Pascale Petit in The Zoo Father

I’ve been sitting on three reviews, not for any other reason than the want of time and breath to finalize them.

One review (coming soon) is of the latest issue of ARTEMISpoetry, a publication of Second Light Network. As always I am struck by the many gifts bequeathed to us by that association and publication, not the least being introductions to poets who may be new to us. In the latest issue, I know that one featured poet whose collections I must read is Pascale Petit.

Petit, a poet, artist and one-time sculptor, was interviewed in this issue of ArtemisPoetry by Adele Ward, the co-owner of Ward Wood Publishing and a poet and writer herself.

Petit has five published collections of poetry, the latest is What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo, which was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot Prize and Wales Book of the Year. There are a number of things that are drawing me to Pascale Petit’s work, not the least is this creation of a collection of poems after Frida Kahlo’s art. The very idea is attractive.

Unknown-4I am also drawn to The Zoo Father in which she developes the very private theme of child abuse. I believe such efforts require extraordinary grace and I want to see how Petit handles the matter.

Another attraction is related to my own arts community.There are some who argue against revealing too much that is personal and Adele Ward asks Petit about this very issue. Petit’s response is:

” . . . I don’t have a choice about my subject matter . . . It is important to me to be true to myself and write intensely because what I’m really interested in is writing about the awe and power of nature ~ human nature as well as animals and landscape. My personal themes allow me a way in to write intensely about awe and shock. Life is pretty shocking, the earth is awe-inspiring, and we perceive it as personal beings, however ‘other’ it is, and its otherness is compelling.” [Emphasis mine.]

I so agree … and honoring our personal themes is a ticket to ride, an antidote to stilted works and artistic blocks.

Further, I think one goal of art – both its creation and its consumption – is to introduce us to our own humanity. I don’t see how we can do that if the works we create and consume lack intimacy.

Petit’s sixth collection, Fauverie, will launch in September this year. You can sample her poems and her art by visiting her website HERE.

A review of What Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo is HERE.

Learn more about Second Light Network HERE.

© 2014, words, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved; photograph by Kitty Sullivan under CC A-SA 3.0 License; cover art, Seren

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as writers it’s all a gift, all grist for the mill …

Unknown-2“A writer – and, I believe, generally all persons – must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.” Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Argentinian poet, short-story writer, essayist and translator, Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges: Interviews with Roberto Alifano, 1981-1983

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Calling all poets and writers: Writers’ Fourth Wednesday is tomorrow

The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise (1890) by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch post-Impressionist painter
The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise (1890) by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch post-Impressionist painter

Each month on the fourth Wednesday, novelist, poet and writing coach, Victoria C. Slotto, presents a prompt on The Bardo Group blog.

Tomorrow’s discussion involves reaching into the artist’s tool box to use “color, line, shape, space, texture, perspective, balance, contrast, movement, form, pattern, value, emphasis, rhythm and unity.”

Won’t you join us? Mister Linky will stay open for seventy-two hours so that you can link in your own work. Victoria and I will visit and comment. We hope that you will visit other poets and writers to read, comment and encourage.

I look forward to seeing you at The Bardo Group blog tomorrow. Until then, blog on …

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Father’s Day with Juan Felipe Herrera, performance artist and California Poet Laureate

Juan Felipe Herrara (b. 1948), American poet and writer, photo by SlowKing
Juan Felipe Herrera (b. 1948), Mexican-American poet and writer, photo by SlowKing under GNUFDL

Juan Felipe Herrera is a Mexican-American poet and performance artist, a writer and cartoonist, a teacher and an activist.

“Many poets since the 1960s have dreamed of a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else: an art grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual too. Many poets have tried to create such an art: Herrera is one of the first to succeed.”  Punk Half Panther by Stephen Burt in the New York Times

Herrara incorporates into his writing his experience of family and the life of the compesinos, migrant farm-workers.

“Into the tilted factories, the smeared taxis,
the stunted universities, into the parlor of bank notes,
in the cramped cookhouse where the dark-skinned
humans still stoop and pitch the daily lettuce bags …”

He sometimes tells stories that arise from what is for him a pivotal moment: the early school experience of trying to fit in though he had no English-language skills. He also writes stories that illustrate the problems of immigration, which often separates families.

In 2012, California Governor, Jerry Brown, named Herrera California Poet Laureate, the first Chicano poet to be so honored.

Many of us – like Juan Felipe Herrara – had fathers or grandfathers who came to the United States to make a better life for themselves and eventually for their children and future generations. Sometimes we like to remember and acknowledge them for their vision, courage and hard work. Today seems like a good day to do so. The video below is charming children’s story, A Tale for Father’s Day, about Herrera’s immigrant father. Enjoy! …

Happy Fathers’ Day to all the dads and to all the moms who, for one reason or other, are both dad and mom.