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I realize I am always seeking images of spaces that feel secret, hidden, that invite you inside them, that are human sized or even child sized. I think this is the space of poems and the space of fairy tales.

What do such spaces do? They feel enclosing, safe, even if they are in some way strange. They echo an interior world even if they are exterior spaces. Shadows are necessary to such spaces. Rain really helps to create such spaces inside the larger landscape.

I imagine how happy the first small bands of humans were to discover caves in the limestone of a mountain; and farther back, how our earlier mammal ancestors were tree dwellers. We want to be sheltered and also have a space for mystery, or a space to peer out from. The atavistic body does not forget. What feels like safety, and also like hidden knowledge? The imagination digs deep into those dreamed memories. 

Jenkins Arboretum (the last year the paulownia bloomed)

Chanticleer Garden

Chanticleer Garden

Chanticleer Garden

Jenkins Arboretum

Likewise: Whenever I make a trip to the Phila Museum of Art, I am drawn back to the medieval* section.

For me these paintings harbor a very specific emotion in their depiction of space. I love the interiors –  how everything is foreshortened, and flattened, and the space feels – for lack of a better word – cozy. It feels human sized. It feels big enough to house the idea and nothing but the idea. You’re going to kill me for assigning “cottagecore vibe” to important works of European art… but, the same things that attract me to the cottagecore décor aesthetic also attract me to these paintings. It is a kind of closeness, of built or imagined space which actively holds the inhabitants.

Then, beyond those interior spaces, there’s always a landscape – presumably, the landscape of medieval Italy or the Netherlands – but it’s completely magical, hold the realism. Because of the medieval approach to perspective, the exteriors – the landscapes – have the same sense of nearness and enclosure as the rooms. Even though there’s a misty distance with mountains, oceans, all of it is somehow flattened in the same way that the interior is flattened, so that you see all of the world at once. You see what you know or believe is there, rather than what you can visually assess is there.

These paintings have a foreground, and a background, but no middle distance. Everything is collapsed in a way that feels almost childlike: there is no vast space that cannot be enfolded in towards the viewer. And it has the same effect that the interiors have on me, mystery yet accessibility, relatability.

(I am making quite an assertion here, about perspective and space broadly, and art historians might have a fit. Maybe it’s more correct to say that the middle ground is simply being foreshortened, rather than lost entirely. Either way, the impression of closeness of the distant landscape is what strikes me.)

This is one of my favorite examples at the PMA; there’s so much realism to the sitter’s face and hands, and then the space he’s in makes almost no sense, despite the perfect straightness of the room’s lines. Beyond the two windows, the views of the landscape are both unconnected and entirely imaginary; a mountain here, a castle there. Rather like that Andrew Wyeth painting, what you see beyond the frame is a composite.

Portrait of Ludovico Portinari, ca. 1469

Andrew Wyeth, Night Sleeper, 1979

This anonymous Annuciation (Netherlandish, 1440-1470) has both the truncated interior space and the expansive landscape beyond. Look how the ceiling is right over their (seated) heads! Yet I don’t feel cramped by it; I feel there’s something very safe here. It might help that even though the Angel Gabriel is male**, as a kid I read almost all angels in these paintings as “female” and thus in my eternal child’s calculus (very difficult to extract from your adult brain), this is a painting of two women exchanging important secrets.

**I know, yes, technically Biblical angels were asexual in some weird theosophical fashion.

The Annunciation, 1450-1470

Another great example in Crivelli’s Annunciation (1486): there are interior rooms (spaces? cubbyholes?), where the walls have been helpfully removed so the viewer can peer inwards, almost as if in a child’s dollhouse. Then you have this courtyard on the left, which is – presumably – outdoors (the artist decided it had to be, in order for the Holy Spirit to descend from heaven!) yet is framed as if it’s a room. And the space is not just restricted from foreground to background; it also has that typical side-to-side collapsing (necessitated by the size of the altarpiece?), so that all characters can fit into the tableau.

Carlo Crivelli, The Annunciation, with Saint Emidius, 1486

(Also I feel like I’m looking at Remedios Varo’s major inspiration here? And maybe that’s why I love her work too… the spaces are very similar; they are not about realism, but rather about a felt reality.)

Remedios Varo, The Creation of the Birds, 1958

Two more landscape details from PMA:

And finally here are two images I’ve saved in my Pinterest board under “cottagecore.” (I told you we’d come back to this.)

Credit: [dunno]

What’s going on with this aesthetic? It’s definitely about green spaces, but not wildernesses, no; it’s about cultivation of a particularly human-mediated space – a meadow, a trellis with roses growing up it. Cottagecore is certainly a reaction – analog as a reaction to the constant sensory offense of digital; person-sized spaces as a reaction to our imposed identity as numberless “consumers.” But I also think there is intrisic affirmation in the cottagecore ethos – we exist in the natural world and are of it, we cultivate it and negotiate with it but are not masters of it. And now I also see how these particular images, which I saved years ago, are explicitly spaces for creation –  one for writing, and one for painting.

This kind of space – these interiors and interior-exteriors – have always, always appealed to me, as I can see now, across various art historical eras, and into my own created landscapes. When I manage to re-invent it – or re-discover it – in a photo, I feel I am getting a glimpse into something magical, and then I try to figure out how to transfer that feeling into writing. This space always calls me back. It invites; it is the opposite of “sublime.” It is sized for a person, though it opens out on some kind of infinite.

[*Late Middle Ages? Early Renaissance? The dates are confusing but you’ll know the change in style I’m talking about; after this period, interiors and exteriors did not look like this.]

Another favorite “interior-exterior” photo, Meadow at Ashbridge Preserve

Wear cheap colorful jewelry and wear it quite seriously. Wear expensive jewelry and wear it lightly. If you have diamonds, put them on for every event, such as: washing dishes, reading the news, napping.

Never wear high heels when expected to.

Never wear high heels at all. Wear comfortable shoes. Consider that every event in life calls for your feet to feel good. Your feet are how you connect to the earth; they carry you on all your adventures. Honor your feet by making sure they are supported.

Use every beautiful thing you own as if beauty was an infinitely renewable resource. Save nothing for “later.”

Never go anywhere with any expectation. Treat all outings like you are just going “exploring.”

Meander.

Don’t be afraid of a lot of sleep. Sleep resets the brain and delivers you into a slightly new, strange reality. It’s useful for artists to be altered some of the time.

Enthusiasm is one of the most plentiful and valuable natural resources. There should be at least one topic you are irredeemably obsessed with, but preferably more than ten.

Corollary: Don’t fuck with people who repeatedly crush your enthusiasm.

Be a little bit undependable. Even “dreamy.” Otherwise people may think you are staid. It’s good to keep them guessing.

Speak to children as if they have an entire inner life you will never know the richness of.

Whatever your most dramatic feature is, play it up to the nth degree, no matter whether it’s considered a “good” feature or not.

Do not underestimate the power of small treasures such as the things children collect. Pebbles, seashells, plastic animals. Hide your treasures in a special box. Keep other adults away from them.

Cut your hair short at least once. I once cut my hair short out of inspiration from a photo of Ines de la Fressange. I do not look like Ines de la Fressange. It was not a good look. However, growing it out and getting to see my hair at every possible length was worth it, and also I could put my desire to look like Ines de la Fressange to bed.

Do not under any circumstances vote Republican.

Remember that all labor has dignity, and is meaningful and valuable to the world. (Except if you are laboring to give yourself unwarranted power, or to hurt other people. Don’t do that.)

It’s really helpful for your lifelong happiness to have more than one thing that you’re super invested in. It helps if they are wildly divergent. This way whenever you are failing at one thing you can think to yourself, who cares? I’m still great at [other thing].

Make your life a single minded pursuit of beauty. Do not make your life a single minded pursuit of good grades.

You may often find yourself short on time; but in your heart, resist being in a rush.

Be grateful for something every day. It doesn’t matter what it is, just that you actually feel humble gratitude in your heart for it. If you can’t actually feel the sense of gratitude, act as if you do. People are extremely suggestible and in this manner you can stealthily change your own mind.

As soon as you start losing hope for the world, it’s time to avoid your news feed. Listen to funny podcasts instead.

Write letters. Even if your recipients never reply – and understand that not everyone can bring themselves to – they will keep your letters for 20 years and feel great fondness for them.

Occasionally, but not obsequiously, tell a stranger you appreciate their personal style.

Appreciate your body and support it like it was your best, dearest friend.

If you cry frequently, over random things, accept this about yourself.

Pay attention to old people and don’t automatically erase them from your mind’s eye. Someday you will be old too, hopefully.

Whenever you are tempted to be smug, go ahead and be smug, but only in your own head. But then try to think of something generous as well. Hold both ideas in equal measure.

Learn the names of the flowers, trees, insects, and birds that live in your part of the world. They are your neighbors and your relatives. I’ve learned the names of hundreds of flowers and then promptly forgotten again but this doesn’t deter me. I just keep starting over again.

Have a favorite flower.

Consider that it is your remit to fall in love with all things, eventually.

When you have thoughts you would put on social media, consider just writing them down for yourself instead.

I feel physically ill. I feel like my soul has been punched. I feel the worst cultural disappointment I have ever experienced.

I am not alone in these feelings.

Hillary is me; I identify with her. The hardest working, most earnest, passionate and compassionate girl. Trying to make something good. Driven by an inner light. Seen truly half the time; reviled and abused the other half.

Today is the first day of a year without my oldest nephew in it. That’s been coming for six months. He was 23. He should be 24 now. In June he killed himself. One is reluctant to say that. One feels they are doing a violence to the listener to even say it.

…

Yes, the initial shock diminishes.

…

You can’t really think about it all at once. You think about it for five minutes, and as you comprehend the reality, your brain kind of shuts down. Then you take your body to the next thing. Wash dishes or read an email or something.

…

A lot of my friends had a year marked by losses. People keep saying how they hope 2015 will be better. But why should it get “better”? “Better” would be if he had his life still and his life improved some – even a little. “Better” is not time passing. “Better” is not what we graduate to. There is no better. There is only dumb persistence.

If I seem to be silent on this topic, it’s not because I’m better or anything is better. It’s because I lack the words to describe despair.

…

Maybe it’s like walking through a desert. There’s water, there’s food. There are, often, beautiful things in the desert. You’re not in danger of dying from the desert, but you also know you’ll never come out of it. The light is harsh and too bright and ceaseless.

…

I am angry at time for passing. It seems to me the world should have halted on June 16. That time should not keep moving forward without my nephew’s existence. It should have just stuttered to a stop. Thanksgiving comes along and I think, What are you doing here? I didn’t ask for you. You’re missing something. Go away. Then Christmas shows up and I think, Didn’t you talk to Thanksgiving as you passed in the hall? Now New Year’s. They never seem to get the message. They have no grace.

…

I wake up and I don’t move. It’s hard to surface from the feeling of dread. I don’t remember my dreams. I wish I would. But coming to wakefulness is such a long shoal. By the time I get there, those pieces have washed out to sea.

…

Maybe comprehending suicide is like an asymptote. The line that gets closer and closer to a horizon it never touches.

 

 

The Paris Review, in a presumed effort at topicality, recently published Frederick Seidel’s The Ballad of Ferguson, Missouri – a kind of semi-ironic, chilly, not very good poem about the unrest in Seidel’s home state. And they are, rightfully, getting some blowback for it. Here’s hoping they hear the criticism, think about it, and publish something better in the coming months. Or how about several somethings better? How about a whole issue devoted to Black voices? Now that would be a thing, Paris Review.

Some have  said that white people shouldn’t say anything at all about Ferguson. Then there’s Danez Smith’s Open Letter to White Poets, which takes the exact opposite tack. If you are a white poet, there might not be a perfect solution. But here are some things:

1) Listen, listen, and listen again before speaking.

2) Just sit with your discomfort; it will prove instructive.

And 3) For God’s sake, don’t write a poem about how you’ll never have to worry about your children being gunned down in the street. We know already.

Without further ado: recent poems by poets of color (ie, the Paris Review Antidote)

Roll Call for Michael Brown by Jason McCall

alternate names for black boys by Danez Smith

not an elegy for Mike Brown by Danez Smith

Rules for My Future Son Should I Have One by LaToya Jordan

How Do I Love Thee? A love poem from the Ferguson, MO police dept to Black residents: An informal emulation of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnet 43 by Aya de Leon and Like flowers in the sky by Vanessa Huang

I Feel Most Colored When I Am Thrown Against A Sharp White Background: An Elegy by Morgan Parker

Sonnet Consisting of One Law by Lynne Thompson

a work in progress by Mahogany L. Browne

Survival Guide For Animals Born in Captivity by Camille Rankine

How to Not Get Killed by the NYPD by Metta Sama

The Gun Joke by Jamaal May

Two Poems to #StandWithFerguson by Nancy Bevilaqua and D.M. Aderibigbe

#BlackPoetsSpeakOut on Tumblr

And this Twitter feed is basically functioning as one long poem at the moment. (Dec 3 11pm)

Poet Claudia Rankine on the violent deaths of black men at PBS NewsHour (Rankine reads an excerpt from Citizen). And Using poetry to uncover the moments that lead to racism (video).

bitter crop by Kelli Stevens Kane

Transition Magazine at the Hutchins Center I Can’t Breathe series

Winter Tangerine Review’s Hands Up Don’t Shoot edition

Posts of interest

#BlackPoetsSpeakOut, But Is America Listening? by Minal Hajratwala

The Spontaneous Overflow of Powerful Feelings: Poetry as a Political Response by Jonathon Sturgeon at Flavorwire

Teaching Ferguson and Failing (to whom I owe many of the above links) by Caolan Madden at Weird Sister

Open Letter to White Poets by Danez Smith at Squandermania and Other Foibles

An Open Letter to the Paris Review and After the Ballad by Shannon Barber at About that Writing thing

Poems That Are Better Than “The Ballad of Ferguson, Missouri” at Miss Fickle Reader

The Stand With Ferguson series at Apogee

The Bearing Witness to Ferguson series at Entropy

After The Ferguson Decision, A Poem That Gives Name To The Hurt by Syreeta McFadden at NPR

Who’s Writing the Real “Ballad of Ferguson, Missouri”? by Annie Finch at HuffPost

If you’d like to try your hand at writing an actual ballad to Ferguson, see The Real Ballad of Ferguson Missouri Ballad Challenge. (Deadline Dec 15.)

I’ll continue to update as I find more.

Exciting news this week as I embark on Coursera’s online poetry class, taught by Al Filreis of the University of Pennsylvania.

Because, you know, when you find yourself totally overwhelmed by life, the logical response is to totally overwhelm yourself a little more. WHEN IN DOUBT, ADD ANOTHER OBLIGATION. Yep. I’m insane.

This week, we revisit the spiritual mother and father of American poetry:

I chose this photo of Whitman on purpose. I think the most common photos of him, in distinguished three-quarters view, with the dramatic white beard – signifying Literary Fixture, Unerring Sage – have the effect of obscuring what Whitman was like in his writing. He was boundlessly energetic, innovative, and as  I write this, younger than I am now: “I, now thirty-seven years old, in perfect health begin” is how he launches “Song of Myself.”

So there you have them. The one discursive, effusive, earnest; the other concise, elliptical, and wry . Talk about flipping the gender expectations. Dickinson and Whitman both embraced their own nature with intense self-scrutiny; they both bent their circumstances to fit their lives rather than the other way around. That’s an example to all of us, not just poets.

Related articles

• Free Online Modern Poetry Course (lynnpedersen.wordpress.com)