Art Poetry 2019 – Kara Emily Krantz and Jody Zolli

For our 2019 Art & Poetry pairing, one pairing was with poet Jody Zolli and artist Kara Emily Krantz.

Here are the works they created!

Kara Emily Krantz provided this artwork to Jody:

In response, Jody wrote the following poem:

Bountiful

Why can’t we be more like her?
More generous, more kind
So ceaselessly benevolent
And careless with her beauty

Always everywhere
Scattering her gifts like jewels
Endless carpets of celandine
Trillium, larkspur, barberry
Blossoming from nothing
Against the emerald velvet
Of a rising spring

She puts us to shame
We, so miserly with our gifts
Hoarders in our fiefdoms of fear

Trapped by our imagined lack
We see the world
Through scarce-colored glasses
Blind to her gifts
Her splendor lost on us

I catch the scent
Of her proffered plenty
Pausing by a half-open window
On a sun-drenched day in May

The smell of flowers
A tantalizing missive
Heralding so much more

The tapestry fragrant and inviting
For those prepared
To wake to her wonders

The second half of this pairing involved Jody giving Kara Emily a poem as a starting point. Jody provided this poem:

Disappearance

And so begins
My disappearance

Wrinkled webs
Newly adorn my hands
Inevitable jowls emerging
Under ruddy cheeks
As my mother’s eyes
Stare back from my mirror

The middle-age spread
Of buoyant flesh
Gradual and generous

The metronome of aging
Runs apace, marked by
The daily aches I wake with

I rise each morning
A stranger to myself
Where did I go?

Wasn’t I once
A force
To be reckoned with?

Now I move unnoticed
Seeing people’s eyes
Slide away
No longer
A thing of interest

As each year passes
I am full of new wisdom
Which no one wants to share
Full of thoughts and stories
On how things work and why

Words fall on empty ears
I have moved from Miss to Ma’am
From foreground to background
Unseen, unheard, and fading fast…

In response, Kara Emily provided this artwork:

2019 Art-Poetry Pairing main page