Poetic License: Narrative Sculpture
Narrative Sculpture at Sanibel School
On the morning of December 15, the 14 members of teacher Andie McCarter’s clay art class displayed their sculpture and performed their poems for an audience of proud parents, teachers and poets. After creating works of sculpture, the students had been asked to practice “ekphrasis” i.e. create a poem inspired by a classmate’s sculpture. To assist the students in their poetic efforts, I visited the Art Classroom on two occasions to give examples of famous ekphratic poems and demonstrate techniques for writing poems about other works of Art. The result was a unique morning of student poetry performance and display of sculptural art. Thank you, Teacher McCarter and student of the Clay Art program for a memorable experience.
Below are my own ekphratic effort and a few student examples.
Narrative Sculptures: A Sonnet
Narrative Sculptures, what stories they tell,
Sculpted and written on Sanibel:
Blue sights, blue beaches, dark versus light,
Underwater scenes glowing at night.
Brown deer hide away in forests, lost lands
Unlock, revealing jungles in the sands,
Mushroom palaces, and the mystery
Of Six Ways to mix a Snowman Martini.
Narrative Sculptures with feet of clay,
Speak to us in their silent way
Of shapes and dreams and thoughts within
The Kiln of Mind where all Arts begin —
Narrative Sculptures, what stories they tell,
Sculpted and written on Sanibel. JP
BLUE SIGHT by Halle DuPre
Blue sight
slithering blues
aqua, sea green, purple, azul
a unicorn tears through my blue sight
wrapped in coils,
in prison
desperately attempting to escape
braids of clay
BLUE BEACH by Grant Reel
Green turtles go out to sea
leaving behind footprints of what used to be
deep blue waves come crashing by
on this blue beach nearby
beautiful coral filled with surprises
look like flowers of all shapes and sizes
This is Blue Beach,
the bluest of them all
large and small waves come
they rise and they fall
Where green turtles go
out to sea
leaving behind footprints of
what used to be
DARK vs LIGHT by Izzy DeCosta
Dark is night
with no light
creatures come out
scurry about
light vs dark
light shines bright
unlike any other night
THE UNDERWATER SCENE by Olin Peck
The underwater scene
seems to me
an eel
a bird
in harmony
there’s green
there’s purple
all blended together
which forms an illusion
that makes me think whether,
whether or not what it seems to be
A mystery below the sea
and the boxes
with curlicues
fills me with surprise
providing no clues
of whatever, laying inside
the deep blue ocean
sees with our eyes
could there be more
than the underwater scene?