I talk a lot about the intersection of poetry and sound. Many people are sick of hearing me discuss the topic, I'm sure. Given that, here I want to share an experiment I tried in which poetry and image intersect–not in the usual concrete poetry method which involves using the words themselves to create images, but by using a pre-existing visual work by one of my favorite artists as inspiration and complement. This will be the first in a series; not of poems associated with images, but of poems which, for one reason or another, will not be incorporated into my senior project compilation.


Triumph Over Mastery II, Mark Tansey

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Triumph Over Mastery II (in honor of Mark Tansey)

I dip my roller, white, ascend
the ladder to begin my work
attending to the task at hand.
A rippling muscled arm extends
much like my own as I erase
the arm, two hands, a head, a cloud
now nothing. Pure, unblemished white.
As I proceed I fail to see
my shadow, painted over like
the chapel ceiling I negate.