Here's our second ekphrastic (poetry based on art) collaboration: Lynette's photography and my poetry. Our thoughts of the creative spark follows. We'll each share thoughts about the whys and wherefores of what we saw and how we responded.
Photo: Lynette
Railroad tracks run right behind the La Posada Hotel in the Route 66 town of Winslow, Arizona. The trains rumble by all day and night. Its my favorite place to sit and watch them, feeling the rumble, and hearing the clickety-clack on the tracks. As I walked out behind the hotel, this chair caught my eye. It had been pulled quite a distance from the designated sitting area. The perfect spot to sit, watch, and feel the trains go by.
Poetry: Keith
My initial response to the photo was to simply comment on the reality of a train moving across a stationary viewpoint.
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But after re-SEEING the photo, months after writing the above poem, what struck me are the separate images in the single frame. The image from the top of the wall up--and the separate image from the top of the wall down. Either can be seen as a stand alone composition.
Use your hand to block the top image from the bottom and you'll see what I mean. The stark white tone of the wall top is like a rip between two dimensions: isolation, loneliness, abandonment as the lower image and the upper image reflecting purpose, power, design, demand. The only thing connecting these two disparate worlds is the chair.
The chair breaks the boundary. In a sense, the chair crosses the "synoptic cleft" of the wall top enabling information to move from one neuron to another. A thought is born. The chair bridges the two worlds literally and figuratively and creates something otherwise impossible. To be said poetically:
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And that doesn't even address all the stories, tragedies, hopes, and dreams being transported IN the shipping containers.
To enjoy a video of the combined project, click
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