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Friday, June 14, 2013

Winslow Homer: Pictures and Poems

Our Poetry Friday host today is Margaret at Reflections on the Teche.

First, I want to thank Laura Shovan for generously sharing her wonderful poetry lessons. I had fun with summer poetry workshops this week. Read some of the student work here.

I visited the Winslow Homer exhibit at our local museum last week and was again caught up in thoughts about crossing genres.

Homer began his career producing lithographic covers for sheet music.


In 1857, his first wood engravings appeared in a Boston periodical.


 In his early work, the children looked like miniature adults.


Then he moved to New York and designed wood engravings regularly for Harper's Weekly. During the Civil War years, Harper's sent him to the field as a war correspondent.


 By the mid-1870s, Homer had mastered the art of carving children. In fact, this engraving, called "The See Saw" (1874) is one of his most famous works.


But look what came first. 


And this.
 Have you ever done this sort of thing? You've written a poem or a scene and put it away. Then you begin working on something completely different, only to discover that the piece you buried in a hypothetical drawer somewhere is the very thing you need to finish the current composition. This happened to me when I wrote my poem, "Allison." I don't normally write lengthy poems, but this one called for a number of sections, and was emotionally draining in the writing process. I got to the end, almost, and knew I needed something more, a conclusion that brought me back to joy. One day I was browsing through some old files and found that I had written that triumphant closing years earlier in a slightly different format. That old piece of a poem became the last two stanzas of "Allison."

And that brings us full circle back to poetry. Homer provided illustrations to many children's poems. Here is one for John Greenleaf Whittier's, "My Playmate," published in Ballads of New England in 1870.



MY PLAYMATE
by: John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
    HE pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
    Their song was soft and low;
    The blossoms in the sweet May wind
    Were falling like the snow.
     
    The blossoms drifted at our feet,
    The orchard birds sang clear;
    The sweetest and the saddest day
    It seemed of all the year.
     
    For, more to me than birds or flowers,
    My playmate left her home,
    And took with her the laughing spring,
    The music and the bloom.

    Read the rest here.




12 comments:

  1. I love the comparison between writing and visual arts. I've been thinking lately about the connections between writing and photography.

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    Replies
    1. I'd love to hear some of those thoughts, Ruth. Are you planning a post?

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  2. Don't you love the music, "The Broken Stile"? It was such a romantic time, for some at least. I suppose he painted those before he did the engraving? I like the color of them. Whittier's poem is just wonderful, a melancholy dreamy quality about it. Are you thinking of writing some poems to accompany this art, Doraine? I enjoyed your post!

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    1. Yes, they came before the engraving. I like the colors, too. His paintings are really beautiful, but the lines in the engraving are amazing when you can see them up close.

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  3. I'm so glad you found a "triumphant closing" for your poem, "Allison" years later. I love when I put something away then look at it a long time later with fresh eyes and see that it is meant to be for a new purpose. Thanks for sharing, Dori! =)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Bridget. I do love when you can see your own work with new eyes. Time does that, doesn't it?

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  4. Thank you for sharing all of this, Doraine! If I lived closer, I would have tagged along to the exhibit.

    And, yes, I think it's fascinating when some form of some long forgotten (likely stashed) work shows up in something new.... Thanks for sharing how this worked for your brave and amazing poem, "Allison."

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  5. Poignant poem, Dori. Thanks for sharing it, and for pointing out the value of combining drafts! That is a great point, and I do often overlook it.

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  6. I love seeing how Homer used bits and pieces of earlier painting together in his famous one. Your point is apt -- just like writers and drafts!!

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  7. Hi, Dori. I was just speaking with my six-year-old niece about Stuart Little. "My Playmate" reminded me of Stuart's friendship with the bird Margolo -- something that was cut from the recent movie version of the book. Both have such a beautiful sense of longing for the pure friendship of childhood.

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    ReplyDelete