Setting The River On Fire/A Miracle for Breakfast

 

I am embarked upon a long-term, informal, but nonetheless dedicated consideration of the poets Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Their poetry has lived with me and in me for decades, but since I started teaching poetry and also took up painting, I am thinking about them a little differently, with an even deeper  passion, compassion, and engagement. Having just begun the recent Lowell study, Setting The River On Fire, and then soon after hoping to read the recent Bishop biography, A Miracle for Breakfast, I can feel a lot of paintings already bubbling up in me, and paintings called "Setting The River On Fire," and "Miracle for Breakfast" will almost certainly be two of them. I can also see other adjacent Bishop-and-Lowell-inspired paintings developing in my head. This series could have real potential. Since both of these poets, kindred yet very distinct spirits, were pioneering emotional cartographers, it seems only fitting that the aspirational, emotional and imaginary geography of so many of my paintings should be informed by these troubled giants of American poetry.

For example, these words from Lowell's poem "The Charles River," quoted in the frontispiece of Jamison's book:

"if we leaned forward, and should dip a finger
into this river’s momentary black flow,
infinite small stars would break like fish."

That would seem to lend itself to some kind of visual interpretation, and indeed I hope that it does.

"infinite small stars would break like fish" just keeps bouncing around my head.

Sometimes I write words. I used to write words a lot more often. And then painting swept them all away. This new project might bring everything together in a vital synthesis. This gives me no little hope.