You may know that in addition to my poetry I also do art, posted on my blog Claudia McGill and Her Art World. For the next several months I will be posting here a combined art/poetry project, Large Artist Sketchbook 2020.
I fill up sketchbooks with all kinds of art. Some contain images only and some of them I use the images as inspiration for poetry. In these books the image is on one page of the spread and the poetry on the other. This book is set up in this manner.
I’ll show you the image and then add the poem that goes with it. See what you think.
The Picture That Was Made
washed-in blue-gray sky
hovers over tired
sallow yellow stained stucco
garage
peeling jumble of windows doors purposes
apartment
up a flight of rickety
stairs don’t look safe but must be
proof
a man stomps on out the apartment door
lights up soon as he sets foot on the landing
and
he does not fall through.
Cloud of smoke wrap him up.
dead tree peels itself
sheds bark on grass rough-cut some time back
sheds shadow on row of sunflowers
they shift twist sway in the wind
concentrate on
inch by inch inching into the sky
their huge ragged-edge dinner plate heads
seeds planted by who knows who
could be somebody with an idea
that things could be another way could be
wanting some color could be liked the look of
sunflowers framed by a kitchen window.
bees buzz.
5/1/20
5/4/20
Large Artist Sketchbook 2020 image 28
Claudia McGill Writes Poetry, Did You Know That? 
Love this poem Claudia – like the staccato form. 👍
Thank you. I took a photo of this scene and In don’t know why it was so arresting, but then I felt the need to draw it, and then to write about it, I poured out all the impressions and feelings it gave me. I like how this combination played out and the whole experience of thinking and feeling about it over time through art and words.
Both your poem and the artwork are very atmospheric.
Thank you. I took the photo a couple of years ago as we were waiting in line to enter the street to set up for an art festival. Something about the scene really made me look twice and I could not get it out of my mind until I did a picture, and then this poem finishedl things off by letting me tell my thoughts. A nice experience due to serendipity!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Thank you, and the same to you and your family!
Wonderful blend of poetry and imagery (in the poem and the art!)
Thank you. Even the extremely ordinary has its story, I think.