Wednesday, January 28, 2009 09:39 PM
Jackson Pollock
 by Fëanor

I learned from Google's logo this morning that today is Jackson Pollock's birthday, and I didn't want to let the day go by without marking the occasion. So a hearty happy birthday to one of my favorite painters, wherever you are! I'm a big fan of any artist who's a rebel and who changed the nature of art by doing something new and different, challenging the aesthetic world by declaring, "This, too, is art." And Pollock was one of those guys. Plus, his work just instantly affects me. Although I enjoy it on an intellectual level, I also enjoy it on an immediate, physical level. It's breath-taking, shocking, epic, beautiful.

Here's a painting by Pollock called One: Number 31, 1950 (image stolen from MoMA.org):



For an assignment in my college poetry class, I took a postcard with a picture of this painting on it and wrote a short prose piece on the other side. I recently found the postcard amongst a bunch of stuff my parents got down from the attic at their house, with my teacher's comments still attached to it on a small post-it note. I was glad to have found it, but I didn't know what to do with it except transfer it to our attic. When I realized what day it was today, I climbed up there and brought it down again. The poem is a little dark and twisted, and if I had it to write again, I'd change some things. But here it is in its original form. I hope you'll enjoy it.

Everyone in the car was screaming. They were saying he was drunk, that he should stop right now. But he could not see any way of stopping; he never could. He had to keep going on, on into the impossible distance, beyond everything that was. So he drove the car into a tree. The tree was a wooden doorway. It led into one of two spaces: one that was empty even of himself, or one where he could perhaps finally speak in a language so fresh and new that it was actually wet, wet on his fingertips. The language of the mind, solipsistic, impenetrable, inevitable, invincible. He was destroying himself in order to destroy the universe, the universe that depended upon his existence. Now there would either be rest finally from the struggle or a new universe, a whole new universe. Nailed against the slender wood by the mangled metal of the still spinning machine, he waited to see which it would be.
Tagged (?): Art (Not), Illustrated (Not), Painting (Not), Poetry (Not)



<< Fresher Entry Older Entry >>
Enter the Archives
Back Home
About
Welcome to the blog of Jim Genzano, writer, web developer, husband, father, and enjoyer of things like the internet, movies, music, games, and books.

RSS icon  Facebook icon 


Advanced Search

Jim Genzano's books on Goodreads Recent Entries

Recent Comments

Most Popular Entries

Entry Archive

Tags

RSS Feeds
  • Main feed: RSS icon
  • Comments: RSS icon
  • You can also click any tag to find feeds that include just posts with that tag.