Art Poetry Project – Poetry First

Art Poetry Project - Poetry First

“The Art Poetry Project” is a collaboration between LAFTA artists and local poets to create paired works of poetry and visual art. On this page you will see art that was created in response to poetry. Each artist selected a poem that they were inspired to represent visually .

THE WRITERS: The poets are from the Louisville Writing Project (LWP), a National Writing Project site and partner to schools in the Jefferson County Public Schools and Ohio Valley Educational Cooperative districts. The LWP works with schools to provide and promote professional development in literacy for teachers of all grade levels and content areas. Jean Wolph is the Director of the Louisville Writing Project as well as an instructor with the Department of Middle and Secondary Education.

Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the work and read the poetry. You can navigate to the next art poetry selection by clicking on the arrow on the upper right of the screen.

The One True Prophet II

The One True Prophet
Kathleen Reno

The One True Prophet
Kenya Dale

At first
She is a fluttering
Inside me
A quick and swirling notion
Gentle, then gone.

Then
She is a soft thud
At my heart’s door
An uncertain visitor
Who may just as well pass me by

Then again,
She is a swift kick
A bulging lump that blows me over
Tilting my Axis
Fully Awake from Eternal slumber

Next,
She is an axe
Splitting my closed mind
A Cosmic soup of Blood and Bone
Hurling outward into all of Creation

Presently,
She is the Future personified
Reaching back into the Past
Urging me onward
Thus far on my way

Requiem of the Ginkgo

Requiem of the Gingko
Karen Buckingham

Requiem of the Ginkgo
by Sarah Yost

the ginkgo tree: living stem
pushing up through the hole
in our weather-worn deck,
thickening with each year’s layer
as the harvested lumber desiccates to rot;
a glorious gift from the previous
owners: faceless benevolent gods
who granted us that small sip of beauty.
one day each fall we circle its trunk,
bathed in the gold flecks of a thousand
fluttering geisha fans, as the tree
unfetters its riches upon our
impoverished open palms, reaching
up, up, trying to grasp the essence
of that beautiful, ritual death.

Silence Say No More

Color Sings
Vickie Wheatley

Silence, Say No More
NeShaune Mahin Lasley

Where I’m from
Shorty can’t do right
Not enough this,
Not enough that
Too black, too white
And to throw it in your face
Blackballed, black out
Black-ish? A disgrace
But Color,
Color is all I see
And Color,
Color with a capital ‘C’
Cause Color is a pronoun
A Person, a Place and a Thing
Color is a pronoun
Color breathes
It shelters – it sings
How interes-ting
You choose to describe me
As Colored

We Are the Youth of a Nation

Mask
Suzi Zimmerer

We Are the Youth of a Nation
Anderson Aven Cook

We are the grandchildren of the slaves you could not break.
Brought from distant shores, we made this land our home.
She said that we stepped ’n fetched a country
And wrote the blues in screams.
A white house now stands, the antithesis of our genesis.
Are we not worthy of a legacy?

We are still chained.
We are the ambition of blood lines aberrant in their old age.

We are the grandchildren of the slaves you could not break.
Brought to our knees, we found our footing, and with time, took our seats.
They say, but sugar, it was our submission
That made your world go round.
Signs demanding subjugation, inflaming our identities.
Are we not a legacy?

We still scream.
We are the ambition of blood lines aberrant in their old age.

We are the grandchildren of the slaves you could not break.
My folks can make me split my side,
They grow the fruit but eat the rind.
Black bodies lie, lied upon and stained.
Are we not daughters? Mothers? Brothers? Fathers?
Still chained. Still screaming. Somehow, still dead.

We are the ambition of blood lines aberrant in their old age,
And we cannot be broken.

The One True Prophet

The One True Prophet
Joanne Weis

The One True Prophet
Kenya Dale

At first
She is a fluttering
Inside me
A quick and swirling notion
Gentle, then gone.

Then
She is a soft thud
At my heart’s door
An uncertain visitor
Who may just as well pass me by

Then again,
She is a swift kick
A bulging lump that blows me over
Tilting my Axis
Fully Awake from Eternal slumber

Next,
She is an axe
Splitting my closed mind
A Cosmic soup of Blood and Bone
Hurling outward into all of Creation

Presently,
She is the Future personified
Reaching back into the Past
Urging me onward
Thus far on my way

Take Me Away

Here, This Place
Cindy Rollins

Take Me Away
Laura Gay Faulkner

The wind whips through me
Tantalized by the falls rough sound
Take me away
Envelope me

Take me away from my worry
From the pain of yesterdays
Let me rest in your grace
I beg you
Take me away

No, take hold
You are mighty
You do not bend
Promises of
The Master’s hand
Help you stand up STRONG

Icy, cool waters
Pour your strength into me
Do not bind me to the fury
Take me away

No, take hold
You are all
You need to be
Please take me away pouring waters
I am afraid
To remain here

No, take hold
Rest in the
Peace
Of your Savior’s Hand

Pathology of Colours

Pathology of Colors
Luna Ortiz

Pathology of Colours
Kathryn Punsly

Go not too near a House of Rose
I knew the language of the floweret
I have seen, visible, Death’s artifact
I know the colour rose, and it is lovely
Love’s emblem in a full-blown rose
Just broken from the stem

O rose, thou art sick
‘Tis but at best a fading thing,
To suffer no diminution
“My fragile leaves,” it said, “his heart enclose”
All tenderly his messenger he chose
The rose fades
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy

The Aunts

The Aunts
Barrett Shaw

The Aunts
Jean Wolph

Velvet drapes of skin
cascade
down their ivory cheeks.
Dots of rouge—barely rubbed in—
mark my doll-like collection
of Great-Aunts.
They sit in a circle in my head,
my mental parlor.

I hear their voices:
dulce
cultura
pianissimo
largo
seventy, eighty years of
practiced chatter.

I answer when asked,
Then sink into the shadows to listen:
absorb mores
discern attitudes
form perspectives
archive information
sneaking back when dismissed;
“Little pitchers have big ears.”

I see their hands:
pale blue roping crisscrosses fine bones;
rings roll around slender fingers.
knuckles rise like little mountains
seventy, eighty years of
housework, needlework, hard work.

I do as bid,
falling into the rhythm of dining rituals:
set the table
say the grace
“pass the peas, please”
clear the plates
dawdling when directed to go out and play,
tucking into a corner to watch them set the kitchen back to rights.

I look into their eyes:
hazel

periwinkle
cornflower
cinnamon
seventy, eighty years of
knowing looks.

Behind the bannister on the landing above
I close my eyes and breathe:
Crisp starched cotton aprons
Tea roses in vases
A cloud of dusting powder
A whiff of Emeraude
seventy, eighty years of
best foot forward.

Secretly I sort through stacks of old letters,
finger spidery script on the pages,
read of weather and neighbors and church…
the daughter who died
the husband who ran off
the son home from war
the precocious grandchild
seventy, eighty years of
family stories.

Shy to talk to them, still I love to say their names:
Emily
Grace
Birdie
Evelyn
I’m their audience of one, mesmerized,
reliving the plays of their lives.

Half a century they’ve been gone.
I sit at their feet yet,
seeking crinoline and chintz counsel
from these Great-Aunts.

Dryas Octopetala

Dryas Octopetala: A Visual Interpretation
Sue Yung

Dryas Octopetala.
Anderson Aven Cook

My name is Aven. Mountain avens are flowers that grow on icy, arctic tundras — despite convention or expectation or presumption. We thrive where others would falter. I thrive where others would falter. My name is Aven, but it wasn’t always. Once upon a time, I was a princess. A flower of a different sort from the other side of the world. A hot house kind of flower — fragile of petal, full of scent. Delicate. Easily broken.

I know what you’re wondering. Was it Jasmine? No. It was Jazmine. Jazmine Nicole Anderson. A name sure to never be found in a souvenir shop, but always on the top of Honor Roll lists. My father and older sister’s doing, because my mother was just thankful I survived. “Ten months before Disney got wise.” My sister tells everyone this detail, always defending her choices and who I became. The antithesis of princess. Never one for glitter or gowns.

You’re also probably wondering: Why? When my father gave it to me after giving me little else. When my sister defends it (me?) whenever she can. Why, my least favorite question. Because I can? Because it isn’t your business. Because I’m not your business. Because I am not who they thought I would be. “Difficult,” “hard-headed” — a leader, not a damsel. Because the name feels full in my mouth — “You’re spelling it wrong” — and saying it feels like pulling teeth. Why? Because I am who my mother and sister raised me to be. Because in a name, there is a person. A person who is a wealth of life, of experience, of emotion, of sensation, of memory. And in me there was an urge to shed what was false and begin anew.

My name is Aven, but my full name is Anderson Aven Cook. Maiden and married, married together for the rest of eternity. Too feminist to let go of the one piece I always cherished, too traditional to not take part of his. His shock that I ever would sealed the deal. A husband that never expected me to be less than what I said I was will be forever cherished. A new name to be embossed on awards and diplomas, debossed on heart and memory, each with time. I told him I would take it (of course) and keep it (forever). Hell or high water. Death or divorce. It’s mine now. He isn’t getting it back.

I chose to marry together my many pieces into a whole I could be proud of. I chose to celebrate my strength. I chose to celebrate every step and misstep that has brought me to this current summit of my still short life. I did this knowing full well that I will fall, stumble, and be torn apart. But just like a rose growing in concrete, I will always bloom again, growing fast and holding strong, wearing my scars like the heroine I am. Remembering the little girl who dreamed of being a conqueror, not a queen.

Mad World

Mad World
Suzi Zimmerer

Mad World
by Kathryn Punsly

I went somewhere familiar
But saw an unfamiliar door
Once opened I found
A large hole in the dry wall
Big enough for a person to fit through.

I hunched over and climbed in.
I perched on the pipe
Like a vulture
And sat in the darkness.
I could feel the running of water below me.

I thought, maybe,
I could sit in the darkness forever.
Create your own sensory deprivation chamber.
A dark mahogany door
That reaches all the way to the bottom
With not even a sliver of light that slips in.

Eleven floors up
Looking down into the dark distance
Like an abandoned elevator shaft
Like a black canary in a coal mine
Silence save for the jack-hammer heartbeat
But eventually even your heart adjusts to the dark

Everyone soon learned I was there
This was a cry for help, after all
I was on the brink of death.
At any moment
The pipe breaking under my weight
The loss of balance
The eleven-story fall
And long pause before the ground

And Her Daughter’s Name is Shams

Look to the Light
Karen Buckingham

And Her Daughter’s Name is Shams
Erin Stephens

Shams
The sun, the light
Shining in her mother’s eyes.
Although such darkness,
Let’s look to the light
Not denying the shadow of death
But standing in our place of victory.
Shams
In Arabic, the sun
Shining in her mother’s eyes
Her mother worth so much
Created with light and love
Reflecting her Maker
In her quiet beauty and strength
In the way she loved her children.
Shams
The sun, the light
Remember the love in your mother’s eyes.

Cryptic Lives

Cryptic Lives
Kim Mahlbacher

Cryptic Lives
Jean Wolph

Rummaging through Grandma’s trunk in the attic,
trying on her flapper-days wedding dress
and 7-quad-A three-inch heels,
snapping fox mouths
to fox tails
around my neck

the bare bulb
swing
ing
on its cloth-wrapped cord,
throwing the spotlight
to small, black corners,
revealing new treasures
to explore
in this smothering tomb

secreted from the activities of the house
by insulated walls
and the heavy door
which MUST be left closed,
lest the heat—or our antics—
escape

Who were they,
these people we found in the attic,
the ones whose faces were smooth,
the ones who received letters from chums,
who carried tiny metallic purses,
wore gangster suits,
played Bottom in a college Shakespeare production,
then boxed up their lives,
side by side, into trunks.

Would I too leave my youth
to mothballs and dry-rot
in a forbidden room,
to someday forget
who I was
and wake up as someone else,

a Grandmother,
a Church Lady,
a Woman of Responsibility?

Who were they?

A sobering thought,
to learn that
Grandmas
were once
Girls.

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