Saturday, May 07, 2005

GUEST POET: JENNIFER KIDNEY TO THE RAIN RAT   I see a painting of the rain: “This is a forged document” the artist writes in the upper left hand corner. Of course. How do we paint the rain, describe a summer storm or hurricane? Every artist is a forger, dealing in counterfeit more real than real, trompe l’oeil, subversive surrealist who changes your ears into eyes, your eyes into ears.   The rain is mauve or gray, melancholy and perverse, a tease, a deluge. The rain is a manic drummer, a crazed typist. I accept the rain.  I am a sponge soaking it up.  I give the rain nothing. The print or paint is dry.  The rain has no effect. It falls outside the windows, in the garden. But the artist frames the rain and hangs it on the wall; and you, reading in your room on a cold sunny day, can see the idea of rain that never goes away.   Note: I post this for Sam (aka Ms. Candide) at feral, who is experiencing a monsoon, a veritable deluge, a hundred year flood up there in No-Cal.   Jennifer Kidney was my professor at OSU during my abbreviated college career in 1977. We kept in touch for several years after I dropped out and she moved on to teach at SMU in Dallas. Jennifer introduced me to the poetry of Charles Simic, an inestimable gift, and also gave me the hope that someday I might actually write an actual poem. As John Cleese famously said in the film Clockwise, "Despair I can cope with; it’s the hope I can’t stand." 11:12:47 PM    comment []