I have begun work on a project based on the photographs of Francesca Woodman. Yes, I know, another ekphrastic project hot on the heels of Film Poems, but the relationship between word and image is something which seems to be becoming quite important to me. Ultimately I find I relate to the visual arts and visual artists oftentimes moreso than I do with poets. I think our contemporary understanding of poetry is not as developed as our understanding of the visual arts. It is as if art history embraced Abstract Expressionism, but its veracity is still a topic of debate among literary historians and practitioners of writing. One finds a preponderance of the old "my 4-year-old-could-make-a-better-painting" argument, which would get you laughed out of an art history department, but in literature becomes a somehow viable critical stance.

Anyway, that diatribe I guess stands as an introduction to the work. As with any ekphrastic endeavor, there is an important relationship between the poem and the "object." Therefore I guess I will link to the photographs when they are available online from the title of the poem.

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #1
Easter Lillies, Boulder, Colorado, 1972-1975 11.1cm x 11.3cm

The 2 flutes
sprout out

the green axis the
  labrys-axe

bilateral symmery:
   spine bisects a

 legs & arm
   spine all alone

this headless
I spine alone

I me the navel pit
 I the spine bud

  hilt of mind

was never we
under middle grey

the 2 fingers

  I always 2