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Rachael Erin Barry
Etc. Art
Just For Fun
The Stories We Keep, 2011.
Photo: ~1996, Julia Covert Barry
Camp Store Kid's Corner, 2019
Where Eagle's Fly-
For Dad, '20-'21
Rio Grande, 2018
Goodbye Tea Party Invites, 2020
Dried Floral Arrangement for Agave Spa at Lajitas Golf Resort -1
Dried Floral Arrangement for Agave Spa at Lajitas Golf Resort -2
Dried Floral Arrangement for Agave Spa at Lajitas Golf Resort -3
Divine Perspective
"When I'm writing a poem, and I get stuck, it's often because I've forgotten this principle: the next line could always be anything. The poem has free will; the future in the poem is not beholden to its past.
This is true for any piece of writing, but poetry seems to foreground those choices, those leaps outside logic or predictability, as if the possibilities of what comes next are more infinite in a poem." - Andrew Weatherhead, poet
Making this collage was like a poetic immersion. In one way, the clippings were about poetry. In the other, it felt a bit like constructing a poem in that there are no rules. Regardless of the fact, something cohesive in its structure begins to form and I'm often surprised by the sum of its parts.
April is National Poetry month.
All these collage pieces were things I picked up while trash clearing in the park by where I live. The newspaper I pulled out of the dirt was one page of The New York Times Book Review. The quote I typed above is from a piece by Elisa Gabbert, talking about the use and influence of poetry. I sat down on the growing green of the forest floor and read what I could of the weathered paper. The other side was a review of the book God: An Anatomy by Karen Armstrong and you can find that article here:
https://www.nytimes.com/.../god-francesca-stavrakopoulou...
From my understanding this article talked about the author's feelings of a loss of connection to a god when there is no image to praise, and compared this to ancient believers that would stay in temples all day to praise and gaze upon the face of the divine.
Now It is my thought and understanding that a declared image of God can also be very damaging and limiting, putting words to the ineffable oftentimes looking like a reflection of the one making the claim. For instance the white Jesus image in churches I grew up in.
I do understand, though, what she is saying about the watered-down understanding of God from years and years of words being misused, manipulated, taken out of context, and changed in meaning all together.
To this she includes:
"Later in the 18th century, Polish Hasidim would develop techniques of concentration that enabled them to become vividly aware of the divine presence, “as though it were flowing all around them and they were sitting in the middle of light” — an experience that made them dance and sing.
This reminds us that religious belief becomes a reality to us only when accompanied by the bodily gestures, intense mental concentration and evocative ceremonial of ritual. Because it imparts sacred knowledge, a myth is recounted in an emotive setting that sets it apart from mundane experience and brings it to life."
And of poetry, Gabbert also cites Rainer Maria Rilke in "Letters to a Young Poet,"
"Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty- describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams and the objects that you remember."
For Karen Armstrong, who has struggled with an impersonal God, might find comfort in the words of Eugene Peterson
"All the prophets were poets. And if you don’t know that, you try to literalize everything and make a shambles out of it. A metaphor is a really remarkable kind of formation, because it both means what it says and what it doesn’t say, and so those two things come together, and it creates an imagination which is active. You’re not trying to figure things out, you’re trying to enter into what’s there.
Eugene Peterson wrote over 30 books, including a well loved interpretation of the Bible called "The Message." When he was alive, he would travel to mountains he knew by name, next to meadows with wildflowers he could identify. You can hear an interview with him on the latest On Being podcast with Krista Tippett.
https://podcasts.google.com/.../NzE2ODMyN2ItMTRkNi00ZjI1L...
Peterson says his first introduction to poetry was the Psalms and throughout his life, he would sit with 7 of them in the mornings and choose one to learn by memory. Then he would become silent and allow his mind to empty of clutter, to make room for these poems to reside. In time, evidence of the impact this practice had on him became like the air he breathed.
Of time he said he approached it not just chronologically, but, "what the Greeks named kairos, pregnancy time, being present to the Presence. I never know what is coming next.”
...
And this acceptance of not knowing what comes next seems to be what allows one to be open to the possibility of anything, and to choose, with more agency, the perspective with which to see it.
To "The Divine Face"
To life
And to the formation of a poem.
Poetry's use of words is careful, recognizing that the wrong ones could easily confuse the message. The writer recognizing that with our words, we are creating worlds, such as life.
Poetry can be anything and I love that. An exploration of language that is revealing, but also a description of the blue ceramic mug that fits inside the palm of both hands of a girl who has cold fingers and a love for tea.
But sometimes a poem is picking up trash
and finding treasure.
Whatever it may be,
The word is a choice,
But it is also a key.
This is true for any piece of writing, but poetry seems to foreground those choices, those leaps outside logic or predictability, as if the possibilities of what comes next are more infinite in a poem." - Andrew Weatherhead, poet
Making this collage was like a poetic immersion. In one way, the clippings were about poetry. In the other, it felt a bit like constructing a poem in that there are no rules. Regardless of the fact, something cohesive in its structure begins to form and I'm often surprised by the sum of its parts.
April is National Poetry month.
All these collage pieces were things I picked up while trash clearing in the park by where I live. The newspaper I pulled out of the dirt was one page of The New York Times Book Review. The quote I typed above is from a piece by Elisa Gabbert, talking about the use and influence of poetry. I sat down on the growing green of the forest floor and read what I could of the weathered paper. The other side was a review of the book God: An Anatomy by Karen Armstrong and you can find that article here:
https://www.nytimes.com/.../god-francesca-stavrakopoulou...
From my understanding this article talked about the author's feelings of a loss of connection to a god when there is no image to praise, and compared this to ancient believers that would stay in temples all day to praise and gaze upon the face of the divine.
Now It is my thought and understanding that a declared image of God can also be very damaging and limiting, putting words to the ineffable oftentimes looking like a reflection of the one making the claim. For instance the white Jesus image in churches I grew up in.
I do understand, though, what she is saying about the watered-down understanding of God from years and years of words being misused, manipulated, taken out of context, and changed in meaning all together.
To this she includes:
"Later in the 18th century, Polish Hasidim would develop techniques of concentration that enabled them to become vividly aware of the divine presence, “as though it were flowing all around them and they were sitting in the middle of light” — an experience that made them dance and sing.
This reminds us that religious belief becomes a reality to us only when accompanied by the bodily gestures, intense mental concentration and evocative ceremonial of ritual. Because it imparts sacred knowledge, a myth is recounted in an emotive setting that sets it apart from mundane experience and brings it to life."
And of poetry, Gabbert also cites Rainer Maria Rilke in "Letters to a Young Poet,"
"Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty- describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams and the objects that you remember."
For Karen Armstrong, who has struggled with an impersonal God, might find comfort in the words of Eugene Peterson
"All the prophets were poets. And if you don’t know that, you try to literalize everything and make a shambles out of it. A metaphor is a really remarkable kind of formation, because it both means what it says and what it doesn’t say, and so those two things come together, and it creates an imagination which is active. You’re not trying to figure things out, you’re trying to enter into what’s there.
Eugene Peterson wrote over 30 books, including a well loved interpretation of the Bible called "The Message." When he was alive, he would travel to mountains he knew by name, next to meadows with wildflowers he could identify. You can hear an interview with him on the latest On Being podcast with Krista Tippett.
https://podcasts.google.com/.../NzE2ODMyN2ItMTRkNi00ZjI1L...
Peterson says his first introduction to poetry was the Psalms and throughout his life, he would sit with 7 of them in the mornings and choose one to learn by memory. Then he would become silent and allow his mind to empty of clutter, to make room for these poems to reside. In time, evidence of the impact this practice had on him became like the air he breathed.
Of time he said he approached it not just chronologically, but, "what the Greeks named kairos, pregnancy time, being present to the Presence. I never know what is coming next.”
...
And this acceptance of not knowing what comes next seems to be what allows one to be open to the possibility of anything, and to choose, with more agency, the perspective with which to see it.
To "The Divine Face"
To life
And to the formation of a poem.
Poetry's use of words is careful, recognizing that the wrong ones could easily confuse the message. The writer recognizing that with our words, we are creating worlds, such as life.
Poetry can be anything and I love that. An exploration of language that is revealing, but also a description of the blue ceramic mug that fits inside the palm of both hands of a girl who has cold fingers and a love for tea.
But sometimes a poem is picking up trash
and finding treasure.
Whatever it may be,
The word is a choice,
But it is also a key.
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