Poetry and Art in Santa Fe:
Allan Graham's AS REAL as thinking &
Cynthia Fusillo's Romance Languages

This is an exciting time for the mixture of poetry and art in Santa Fe. We are graced with two amazing exhibits: Allan Graham's AS REAL as thinking and Cynthia Fusillo's Romance Languages. Both shows are unique in their skill in bringing together visual art and poetry.

One installation in Allan Graham's exhibit (visible on the Net at SITE Santa Fe) is “Time is Memory,” a circle of 16 black and white meditation pillows on the floor; in front of each pillow is a “Japanese death poem.” The poems are illuminated by a light powered by a solar tracking device on the roof of the building. The intensity of the light is dependent upon the sun and the clouds. When I visited, a light snow was falling, the sun flickering life/death of Basho. . .

ill-traveling
my dreams breaking
upon ancient fields

Then the room and poems faded into darkness, as a cloud steals the light from Buson. . .

turning to day
the night
white plums blossom

It was amazing to think of the long departed poets and their poems written at the moment of death and to see the poem come into light, the words pop and spark into view, the weather as theater. The spirit of the poet, the empty pillow waiting for you to complete the arc, watching the shadow of snow pulse on the white page, holding the last thought, the last whisper of Issa. . .

born bathed
dead bathed again
senseless mystery

February 16th, Robert Creeley will speak about the show at SITE Santa Fe. Here are the opening lines of his poem “As REAL as Thinking,” from which Graham took the title of his show:

As REAL as thinking
wonders created
by the possibility--
forms. A period
at the end of a sentence
which
began it was
into a present,
a presence
saying
something
as it goes.

The focal piece in Cynthia Fusillo's show, Romance Languages, is the installation entitled “Woman Becoming Poems.” She has adorned an antique bed with a translucent quilt composed of 117 love poems written by 22 Santa Fe women poets. On Sunday February 13th the women gathered at Guadalupe Fine Art to read from their poems. It was an inspiring reading in its range of voices and material. Several of the poets remarked on the sense of community the project had given them. From Cynthia Marshall's “Splinters” we have this striking image:

Losing distinction in the dusk, you turned
to me and your body refracted a moan

that blinded, crested through me and covered
the horizon, blotting lights and the trawlers.

You turned again, closed into the splinter
of your body, left a wash of bleats

blinking on my throat
Like the woman who clawed

her child's photograph off the wall
I said you'd drown when you left.

Miriam Segan recited her “Night School.” Here is the opening stanza:

What I learned
I learned in the dark
Dreams of the sea
Beneath the house
House on stilts
On the San Andreas fault
Lit by neon
Pink and green
Like a sleazy bar
At the edge of nowhere

Francine Friedman spoke of watching over the dying in her poem, “Night Watch”:

The darkest hour is yet to come.
You've been asleep;
the omission of time
is your luxury.
I stay awake.
Listen to you breathe sometimes.
Breathing
It's what I hope you'll do.
I never know
if you will stop
like the end of a sentence.

I will close with the last lines of Zoë Smith's poem, perfect in the aftermath of Valentine's Day and perfect for the show's theme of Romance Languages. Treat yourself to a delight; go experience both these exhibitions. Graham's show runs until March 12th and Fusillo's show runs through February 23rd. Here's Zoë:

Aching with love for what they were
and what we know they will become,
Tall browned by the weather,
quieter, but sill trembling
asking
how fast
is the speed of paradise.

--Gary Mex Glazner

Gary Mex Glazner founded Poetry Slams in San Francisco, spent most of 1998 travelling around the world both gathering & giving out poetry, won the individual championship at the first annual International Poetry Olympics in Stockholm in late 1998, settled in Santa Fe, New Mexico on his return & became New Mexico/Southwest correspondent for the About.com Poetry Museletter. You can read his story, “The Mystic Barber of Selçuk” at Salon.com, & several of his recent poems are at sniffy linings press.

More about haiku & haiku poets:

• See our Haiku/Senryu/Tanka Net links library.
• Gary Glazner suggests you visit Captain Haiku's Secret Hideout.
• Gary also recommends you check out Salon's sampling of the “Japanese death poems” before you visit Borders.com to order your own copy of the book.

More about Robert Creeley:

• Craig Arnold wrote a very interesting appreciation & analysis of his work for the Austin Chronicle in November 1999.
• See our February 1999 feature on Creeley, when he won the Bollingen Prize.

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