OF TURTLES AND SHOES

As I said at the time …

A constant challenge in any artwork is how do we shape the material so that it enters some other place from the one where it originates? What form or structure is appropriate or helpful? How much abstraction? Do we stay general or become specific? (I notice that you don’t identify what kind of turtles these are!) How much elaboration? What does it take for the unexpected force to appear, that third enterprise apart from the author and the reader? How transparent or center-stage should the author be? Never easy answers!

I have many fond memories of Cincinnati, once I was able to drive down to escape Dayton for an evening or weekend, back before I finally got away to Bloomington and points beyond. Maybe you’re ready to do a poem about Erchenbrecker and Vine, the address of the zoo?

I love the cover. A good feel to that turtle art. And the Revolutionary War-era American composer William Billings (who’s also a kind of Yankee grandfather to the Southern “Sacred Harp” style of hymn-singing) has a wonderful part-setting of the Song of Solomon citation you use.

Thanks for the reactions – and for giving the shoes a good home.

Catch you later – Namaste.

~*~

This was to small-journal editor Troy Teegarden, who’d sent me a copy of his latest poetry chapbook, Reflections on the Elkhorn (1997).