![]() |
Poet Barbara Crooker |
Poet
Barbara Crooker collaborated with visual artist Claire Giblin—and 22 others—to
produce works for The Handprint Identity Project: An Exchange Between Artists
and Poets. Organized by sculptor Milt Friedly, the project was first exhibited in fall 2008
at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, PA. More about the project here.
Says Crooker: “The
work that Claire and I did was "back and forth" ekphrastic
work. She painted "Jade Mountain" after my poem "Climbing the Jade Mountain," and then I wrote "Mountain"
based on her painting.
![]() |
Jade Mountain, acrylic, ink, pigment on paper. Collection of Roberta McClintock, NY, NY |
CLIMBING THE JADE MOUNTAIN
(filling out my son’s SSI forms)
The Chinese poets tell us
that to start an impossible journey
you must begin with small steps,
one foot in front of the other,
on the rock-hard road.
There are
no maps. The mountain
gleams
in the afternoon sun.
The load grows
increasingly heavy.
We
are tired, we are thirsty,
and we want to know
how many dusty miles remain?
The mountain is silent.
All the guidebooks are written
in an ancient language
we don’t understand.
When night overtakes us,
we lie down in a dry
![]() |
Artist Claire Giblin of Millersville, PA. More at http://www.giblinart.com |
river bed, with a stone
for a pillow. Morning
draws her curtains.
We begin again.
MOUNTAIN
After "The Jade Mountain" by Claire Giblin
For
Adrianne Marcus
August,
and the sun's burners are set on high,
cicadas
shrieking at noon. My friend is leaving
this
floating life, cancer’s dragon claws deep
in her
belly. The cold mountain lies ahead,
but there
are no maps or books to guide her.
We’re all walking the same jade highway.
Barbara Crooker’s poetry collections are Radiance, winner of the Word Press First Book Award and
finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize; Line Dance, winner of the
Paterson Award for Literary Excellence; More; and Gold. More
at www.barbaracrooker.com.
painters and poets
ekphrastic
A beautiful example of the sister arts speaking to and through each other.
ReplyDelete