Emerge Gallery's ART & WORDS is an exhibition of artwork and poetry inspiring one another. Area artists and poets were invited to participate by submitting existing work as inspiration, and also creating new work inspired by submissions. Artwork by participating artists was chosen by poets who created new poetry inspired by their selection. Artists were also given the opportunity to create new art inspired by submitted poems of participating poets. Exhibition catalogs are available to purchase by clicking here.
Saugerties artist Ann Morris has two sculptures in ART & WORDS. Both were chosen by poets as inspiration for new poems, which are exhibited side-by-side with Ann's work. She discusses her reaction to Alessandra Farkas' poem Within written for her sculpture of the same name.
Alessandra Farkas was so moved by Ann's sculpture Within that she submitted two poems inspired by the sculpture.
Within
Stone fired stoneware
WITHIN
Hot frothy repulsion
Blocks my orifices.
It fills mouth pores nostrils
And every sound it kills.
Its echo petrifies me
Love, Blood, Narcissus.
Where is the noise
I chase, stumbling?
Where is the noise?
Love of pus, urine and death
Your embrace gives me.
I turn into bones
Trapped in your web
Too strong to flee.
You tarantula.
I do not see the sonic flavors.
Where is the noise?
Where is it?
One, two, three times
Your net envelops me.
Blind, I fall in your trap.
You, lethal sniper
Discharge all your bile.
I am dead
And yet I still hate you.
— Alessandra Farkas ©
inspired by Within by Ann Morris
WITHIN II
War was born from cries
Bacchanal of the rich
Pompous celebration of lard.
A poor bowl for us
of stricken bones
It returns to our table
And eternal echoes of blood.
Is the goldfinch still pecking?
And are your eyelids always blinking?
Or oblivion has decimated
Even the tall wheat?
They told us: "Wait,
Screaming softly,
Your turn for war. “
— Alessandra Farkas ©
inspired by Within by Ann Morris
Lots Wife
Smoke fired stoneware
HOW TO STOP BEING A BODY
Some said baby-face.
They projected her onto the mountains
at night; mutable, gorgeous.
Her permeable evolution: all of the
fluidity of fish, all five fingers of a fist.
The fulfillment of expression.
In the gauzy hours of the evening,
she billowed licentiousness, pollen, soft
sand and humidity.
History called this behavior curious
and mentioned Temptation. It carved the word
Profligate into the temples of heads.
So, in her best interest,
the angels pulled her aside,
asked her to stop being a body.
Bad blood, they implied.
Said, pack it up. Bones in boxes.
Package your lungs, and stuff your veins with tissue.
Batten the hatches of the heart. Cellophane the brain.
Stop breathing. It's ungodlike.
As if there is a choice. Ask grass to
solidify, or better, try to quantify the sound of bees.
It was matter of fact, the way
she picked her way up the mountain,
topped the outcropping, and stared.
History called it Punishment. Something she couldn't resist,
weak as she was. But they failed to detail
the dancing reflections of godfire, unblinkingly
memorialized in salt.
Even her pillar, a cairn of insurrection,
a hard packed cloud, marking the path.
— Alanna Wray ©
inspired by the artwork Lots Wife by Ann Morris
additional sculptures by Ann Morris (click on image to purchase and for more information)
