This is the first step in a collaboration of words and painting (shown here in first draft) between myself and artist Jan Duyt. It begins as a response to a visit to Weston-Super Mare where I grew up. Jan’s beautiful and haunting sketch – she describes it as a sketch – made me think of times coming home from school alone, waiting for the bus, watching the sea and thinking – maybe even then making up poems in my head. Jan’s painting was a gift to me bringing words with it on its tide.
On the Seafront, After School
Then
sand and tide are as glass,
words on a mirror sea
glimpsed, not etched, only half-made
half-dared, never voiced.
Caught
like the glassblower’s breath
in the bubble; molten still,
as the sea-bird stilts of a pier in mud,
waiting for a moon as red as a bus
to scooch above the marine lake,
fired in the oven of the sea.
This is a really interesting idea. Informally I know I’ve been inspired by art of all kinds and often it’s a trip to an art gallery that pulls me out of a writing slump. I hope you share more soon!
I’m like you Pam in that art is always an inspiration for me and so it’s great to collaborate in this way and I will definitely share more.
A number of years ago, I was in a writing group to which a writer/artist belonged. She was due to hold a local exhibition so we all wrote small pieces to accompany her paintings.
Of course they weren’t woven in like your is, but the fledgling attempts were worthwhile exercises.
Hi Robyn – What a lovely idea . I always thing it’s great to have a concrete goal like an exhibtition and good to have a whole range of responses.I think it works well for both writer and artist Avril