Art – Poetry – Liz Decasse and Evan Plante

For our 2018 Art & Poetry pairing, one pairing was with artist Liz Decasse and poet Evan Plante.

Here are the works they created!

Liz Decasse provided this artwork to Evan:

In response, Evan wrote the following poem:

Blink Back
December 2017

The focal plane rain told the truth
That we are be-lighted, delighted
Privileged to see all
To be at all
To cruise
And to feel all.

The six fingered spline shows the world
As I blink back, shrink back
Soaked by tears
Drowned by tomorrow
And walk
Like parallel drips.

The missing wind blows nether streets
Yet we hold back, fold back
Upon ourselves
Forced to sit
Compact
With voices unheard.

The mind spends its time in the rain
Made to taste dark, face dark
The cityscape
Edges are soft
And sweet
With shadowless forms.

(End)

The second half of this pairing involved Evan giving Liz a poem as a starting point. Evan provided this poem:

Dying Birds
2007 Nov 10
(Contemplating Merrick Jarmulowicz’s death, a dream and a pile of feathers.)

They’re falling from the trees,
those dying birds.
Wings to the body.
Frozen.
Falling off the power lines
and bouncing along the pavement
like bowling pins.

They stare back at me,
though not blankly,
though not facing.
Lightly accusing soldiers
dead in the road.

Years ago I shot at birds.
Now I don’t.

We found a feathered feast
in the woods near some
scat-on-a-rock.

Did the scatter eat the bird?
Why are they frozen
cold in rigor?

Yet they feel warm to the touch,
my body heat bouncing off
their shiny feathers?
Those dead birds
lying on the pavement.

Like pins… with no alleys.
No rules.
No overtaking of decay.

If I kick one to the ditch
they seem no less in number.
As I watch, the bird-pile grows,
their blackness covering the gray tar
as new pavement.

Dead birds, not pointy,
First alone.
Now locked together in a
Great mat of death.

In response, Liz created this artwork:

2018 Art-Poetry Pairing main page