Andrea Selch
Boy Returning Water to the Sea: Koans for Kelly Fearing
ISBN 978-0-9790623-0-8
Cockeyed Press (2009)
{Email us about special signed, numbered editions}
$15.95 Retail
$14.35 Sale
This book is distributed by Carolina Wren Press.
To order, please visit their books and merchandise page.
Carolina Wren Press
120 Morris Street
Durham, NC 27701
(919) 560-2738
Fax Order Number: (919) 560-2759
(Photo by Diane Amato)
Andrea Selch has an MFA from UNC-Greensboro, and a PhD from Duke University, where she taught creative writing from 1999 until 2003. Her dissertation was a history of poetry on commercial radio in the United States from 1922 until 1945. Her poems have been published in Calyx, Equinox, The Greensboro Review, Oyster Boy Review, Luna, The MacGuffin, and Prairie Schooner. Her poetry chapbook, Succory, was published by Carolina Wren Press in 2000. Her full-length collection of poetry, Startling, was runner-up in the 2003 Turning Point competition and was published by Turning Point Press in October, 2004. [Startling has been re-issued by Cockeyed Press in 2009.] In 2001, she joined the board of Carolina Wren Press and is now President and Executive Director. She lives in rural Hillsborough, North Carolina, with her partner and their two children.
As if by magic, the unforgettable poems in this chapbook lead us into the images the poet sees before her in the paintings of William Kelly Fearing. ‘The Poet and Bird Before an Open Cave’ concludes, ’through the cave another sky is visible.’ Through her poems, Andrea Selch makes visible a world that only a poet in her most intuitive, visionary mode can create. This is one of the most beautifully designed, intriguing books I have seen in a good while. Discovering Kelly Fearing's art in the midst of Andrea's poetry makes the book even more memorable. KSB
Boy Returning Water to the Sea
(1949, Oil on Canvas)
Yes, there's a need for it every
azure splash, proto-icicle, -iceberg, -teardrop,
-steamcloud rising from a stormdrain,
-rusty puddle just stepped in.
Boys will be boys, but then also men:
His mantle is tattered, his feet torn,
and the handles of the basket are gone.
The Place of Tobias and the Angel
(1955, Oil on Canvas)
For fish gall for his father's eyes, Tobias
lowers his line. It's light, but the drop
is plumb, only a hook, and hope, for bait.
His father's eyes,once bright hazel, able
to discern spun warp, felt weft, now cloudy
as winter sky, the muddied Euphrates.
The winter sky, above the Tigris,
is rife with birds, Crested Larks, Sand Martins,
a single Lesser Kestrel heading south.
Birds crowd the shore as well, hunting
under the scrub pine. What do they know
of sons, of fathers, the curses their droppings stir?
On a cliff above him, the angel Rafe
also hopes, as angels do, though
with his wings pinned back, impeccable.
The Zebra's Secret is Silver
(1974, Oil on Canvas)
It is important to begin at the beginning--
not Aardvark or Antelope, but Aquamarine--
and not to trouble yourself, at first,
about composition, just listen
to shadow and mist, the fan of whiskers
from a muzzle not quite black.
Everyone and every thing has already come,
already gone, so there's no hurry:
Without hoof prints behind or before him,
the Zebra stands on a small green hill
flicking his bristly tail--"No."
*********************
Please click on this pdf image to enlarge:
******************
The Poet and Bird Before an Open Cave
(1963, Oil on Canvas)
Even though it's a fantasy,
they don't speak
the same language.
The man hears " Squawk, squawk."
The bird wonders what interest
there is in a bush,
albeit a fragrant one
like Rosemary.
But through the cave
another sky is visible.
*********************
Texas is Much Smaller Here Floating Through the Equinox
(1982, Found objects and opals)
What he'll miss isn't the sky, uninterrupted by trees,
or the tumbleweeds tumbling like cartoons of themselves,
not the hills, where there are hills, nor the fenceposts,
uncountable, punctuating the road. Not the heat in the summer,
nor the rain, when it rains, nor the way winter
lets you see miles away in perfect focus.
Not the drawl, which he doesn't notice anymore,
nor the tea always sweet. Not the light
nor the darkness. Not the difficult poses, passages,
transcendence, when he has managed them. Not the gratitude,
returns or restrikes. But the debris--rust and opals--
that can be made, so easily, to speak.
Watching Lightning
(1993, Prismacolor Pencil)
Three pink fish are enough,
among the fingers of seaweed,
to suggest more.
Though the lightning is still very far off,
its tentacles have already shattered
the lavender sky.
So be it.
(Kelly Fearing)
William Kelly Fearing, before coming to Austin, taught and painted in the famous Fort Worth Circle, which had an immense influence on mid-century Texas art. He was born in Arkansas, studied art at Louisiana Tech and received his master of fine arts from Columbia University. He was Ashbel Smith Professor of Art at The University of Texas at Austin for 40 years, and in 2002, the Department of Art and Art History presented a 60-year retrospective of his work. That exhibit brought together paintings, drawings, prints and collages from public and private collections throughout the United States and traveled to The University of Texas at Arlington and the Old Jail Art Museum in Albany, TX.
No comments:
Post a Comment