A Burst of Poet Ellman and Painter Gottlieb's Primeval Echo

New Jersey poet Neil Ellman has twice been nominated for Best of the Net, the Pushcart Prize, and the Rhysling Award from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. His poems appear in print and online journals, anthologies, and chapbooks worldwide. His ekphrastic poetry includes nine chapbooks devoted individually to the works of Dalí, Miró, and other modern and contemporary artists. Parallels: Selected Ekphrastic Poetry, 2009-2012, is his first full-length collection available here. Ellman talks about his ekphrastic poems here.

Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974) was one of the "first generation" of Abstract Expressionists. Born in New York City he studied at the Art Students League from 1920-1921 and again after he returned from travel and studies in Europe. Gottlieb was a masterful colorist and in the Burst series his use of color is crucial. He once said: “I frequently hear the question, ‘What do these images mean?’ This is simply the wrong question. Visual images do not have to conform to either verbal thinking or optical facts. A better question would be ‘Do these images convey any emotional truth?’

Burst

(after the painting by Adolph Gottlieb)

August sun scarring heaven’s face

the scent of burning skin

turns night to day, black to ageless red’s

barbaric burst of light—

   noon on the killing fields

       bleached black

red sun rising in the east

a blister in the sky

   without a face.

Primeval

(after the painting by Adolph Gottlieb)

First awakening

First child  

First the crawling light

   glows first

   among the suns

First black then red

   then spectral white

First an infant

   then the sun

   speaks alphabets

   in silent space

First the scrawl

   of a deity

   upon the earth’s

   beginning

   as at its last

First words matter

   in the garden of

   our death.

Echo

(after the painting by Adolph Gottlieb)

We are two brothers

two selves

two moons hovering

above the earth

perfectly aligned children

of promiscuous gods

their echoes we echo

each other’s better half

and worst

our orbits intersect

from time to time

when too-close brothers

too-soon collide

as sibling do

who envy the other’s
surpassing side.