I really enjoyed our discussions about the painter Marc Chagall, because he is an artist I have never studied before.  I was very struck by his unique and innovative artwork.  You can really see him exploring many different historical art movements, such as surrealism and cubism.  Another thing I like about his work, is the fact that he retains a strong sentimental attachment to his home and his wife, and this helps the viewer connect and understand the things that Chagall was most passionate about in his life.  His invocation of dreams and illusions give a weighty yet whimsical look at the world as he saw it.  I liked the exercise we did in class when we played the poetry game and picked words and then spent time writing our own ekphrastic poetry based on this painting by Chagall, The Poet.  I wanted to put the poem that I wrote up because I like it and it has links to the poems written my my other class mates, which I think is interesting considering we did not discuss what we were writing until after we had all finished.  I thought it was neat how the poem could invoke different emotions in each viewer yet many of us still drew similar connections from the painting.  Here is the poem that I wrote in class:

One night,

I used the butter knife

To cut a small notch

On the top of my head.

I thought I would use it to

Pour in the vodka.

Instead I rotated my head

And let the thoughts pour out.

Blue thoughts,

They stained my suit.

I wondered if my head would get stuck,

Like this,

Turning green from loss of blue,

Upside down,

It felt so good.

But then my last thought dripped out

And I forgot what it was I was doing and

How to put my head back on and

Whatever else thoughts teach you, I forgot,

Frozen here

My cat sat by, lapping up

My warm blue thoughts,

Until it realized better things,

And wandered off.

I have written poetry for a while, but never seriously, always just as something fun, another way to express feelings and ideas.  While I was writing this I had been reading a lot of William Carlos Williams and Elizabeth Bishop, so I was thinking about line sequencing and phrasing and also expressing the scene in straight, simple fashion (one syllable words for example).  Reading back over this poem to post it to the blog, I do see myself being influenced by the poets we have been reading for class.  I also really enjoyed giving a personal narrative to the painting, before this class I had never been exposed to ekphrastic poetry and painting and I find the numerous examples we have been studying and the various choices in painters and methods, very fascinating.  It never occured to me to combine the two, but I have no idea why it never did, it makes perfect sense and it is so enriching on many occasions, to give the artists and the readers/viewers the combined beauty of a visual work and a verbal work together is something that I personally have been very affected by and grateful to be introduced to.