.
Hove Lawn panorama: sea view, dawn: photo by Tom Raworth, 17 January 2011
Pass on by, love,
wait by that garden gate.
Swing on, up
on heaven's gate.
The confounding, confronted
pictures of world
brought to signs
of its persistent self
are here in all colors, sizes --
and hearts as big as all outdoors,
a weather of spaces,
intervals between silences.
In My Eye, I Saw Creeley's: Jim Dine, 1996, for Robert Creeley's 70th Birthday Celebration
Robert Creeley: So There: Poems 1976-1983, cover by Jim Dine
Robert Creeley: For J. D., in Jim Dine/Five Themes, from Collected Essays, 1989
Creeley and I agreed to write to each other, to keep talking. I hadn't ever had such a dangerous friend before. By dangerous I mean the anger was bubbling up and kept at bay by austere and beautiful sculptures of American words, honed to almost nothing. The blade was very, very sharp.
-- Jim Dine on the beginnings (c. 1965) of his long friendship and working relationship with Robert Creeley, from the reminiscence I knew about Creeley
Creeley and I agreed to write to each other, to keep talking. I hadn't ever had such a dangerous friend before. By dangerous I mean the anger was bubbling up and kept at bay by austere and beautiful sculptures of American words, honed to almost nothing. The blade was very, very sharp.
-- Jim Dine on the beginnings (c. 1965) of his long friendship and working relationship with Robert Creeley, from the reminiscence I knew about Creeley
Moon and seagull: photo by Tom Raworth, 7 January 2010
Hearts
Just as one's self will serve as constant in a world of otherwise shifting reference, a heart
is sign that one can care, that there is a consistent presence of
feeling. In a curious way this heart is neither inside nor outside
oneself but, rather, exists in a hieratic determination of its own
possibility, and so lives in a place that can be as powerfully singular
and remote as the moon or as physically evident and contained as one's
own hands, feet, and head.
This heart is an
imagination, of course. One knows the actual heart looks not at all like
those most familiar from the iconographic slogans of Valentine's
Day -- which seems itself an invention from faint root except that there
must be one day on which, unequivocally, hearts triumph. Have a heart . . .
It
would be an error, however, to presume that these specific hearts are
either symbolic or ultimately abstract. They are far more like weather, a
shifting presence that has faces but is not itself a fixed content.
More apt then to call them, among other things, a ground or context
which serves as means for feeling out the possibilities of what is going
on.
The insistent echoes of this image must have
been delight to an artist so remarkably open to language and its powers.
One can trust the associations here of everything from 'A heart as big
as all outdoors'
to 'hardhearted' or 'broken-hearted' or, simply, 'The heart of the
matter.'
Robert Creeley: from Hearts, in Jim Dine/Five Themes, 1983
Tom,
ReplyDeleteThanks for all this, starting with --
Pass on by, love,
wait by that garden gate.
Swing on, up
on heaven's gate.
[leading to]
a weather of spaces,
intervals between silences.
And Jim Dine's sense of Creeley's "austere and beautiful sculptures of American words, honed to almost nothing. The blade . . . very, very sharp."
And his hearts, being "a ground or context which serves as means for feeling out the possibilities of what is going on." -- "the heart of the matter"
And Tom's two beautiful photos!
6.6
light coming into sky above still black
ridge, waning moon across from branches
in foreground, wave sounding in channel
window over there, same way
the day a fixed point
to turn the question around,
object, without which
cloudless blue sky reflected in channel,
line of 7 pelicans gliding toward point
It must have been tiring to have only one eye, like having one heart but I guess the focus (teacher talk) can be intense.
ReplyDeleteWell, where Ernest Hemingway came from, even the rivers were not only big but had two hearts.
ReplyDeleteDear Tom,
ReplyDeleteTouching to see what I saw alongside Jim and Bob on a date my memory always flashes up D-Day. Thanks.
(for Robert Creeley and George Kimball)
peter falk, tex avery
each with but one eye to see
nelson, thurber, johnson too
shared a two dimensional view
gordon brown, jack elam
ry cooder, moshe dayan
hannibal, rex harrison
half in gaza, every one
It was rumoured for some time that the Cosa Nostra was "run" out of a cigar stand in the Bronx managed by a character familiarly referred to as Un Occhio.
ReplyDeleteThough of course following hard upon the familiarities came the imbedding in sculpture in the East River.
Tom,
ReplyDeleteJust yesterday I read this poem, and today, I find it posted on your blog! It becomes even larger, richer than ever (if that is possible) accompanied by Raworth's photos, Dine's art, and Dine and Creeley's quotations.
Marcia,
ReplyDeleteMany thanks.
To think that two people on the same planet are reading the same poem at the same time -- this possibly qualifies as a small miracle, any more.
I love the explanations--the blade so very sharp--
ReplyDeletethe beautiful sculpture of words.
And then the heart being like weather, a shifting presence.
Really beautiful.
Ah thanks Nin.
ReplyDelete"... -- the blade so very sharp --
the beautiful sculpture of words."
That enduring image of the sculptor-poet speaking of the poet- sculptor, and the thought of the words as something, then, in made form, enduring, carved with care -- and that, not at all easily -- but once and for all, certain, sure.
Thinking back, Jim's words remind me (I guess) of "where I came in" -- with these things -- and what made this kind of work so appealing, way back when, before poetry and art turned into networking and facebook and gossip ranking and prizes for getting along with the prevailing Powers That Be...
"And then the heart being like weather, a shifting presence..."
the eye of the heart...
ReplyDeletewhen the storms of the heart hit with the semi irrugular frequency, i just recall the heart like weather...
ReplyDeleteEddie,
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear your word/ When one's hearts are a strong suit, it's ok to wear them on the sleeve