Playing with Poems: Rules, Tools, and Games

Content Background

In order to be prepared to teach this unit, a teacher needs to understand the similarities in the vocabulary of art and poetry. While other art images will be discussed, the work of Stuart Davis reflects all of the overlapping elements found in poetry and art. In conjunction with Davis's work I will discuss Ekphrastic poetry and some of the poems that fit into that category.

Stuart Davis (1892-1964)

Davis is considered the forefather of Pop Art. Pop Art is an art movement in the 1960's that simplified popular culture objects. Davis's parents were both successful artists so growing up he was surrounded by the arts. An artist named Robert Henri mentored Stuart Davis in New York City. Davis became very successful and was asked to display his work at the famous Armory Show. Over the years he became friends with some outstanding artists such as Charles Demuth, Arshile Gorky and a poet named William Carlos Williams. He did get criticism from colleagues that his paintings were beginning to resemble a European art movement called Cubism. Some of his colleagues saw him as not being faithful to his roots in America. All Davis wanted was to be known as a modernist artist. He was influenced greatly by Jazz. ³ He displayed Jazz in his work by his use of movement and repeated patterns, giving a sense of rhythm.

Stuart Davis included in his work many basic elements of art such as line, color, and shape his paintings show students how easy it is to include basic drawing skills in their own work. His paintings are simple and similar to a puzzle. The painting below, Combination Concrete #2 that Davis created later in his career, is a great example of shared elements of art and poetry writing.

Davis uses three primary colors red, yellow, blue, with the angular lines to create a path for the viewer's eyes to follow. There are angular, zigzag and curved lines; all examples of lines I demonstrate in the art room. The white space created from all of the overlapping objects sets-up a foundation to make the words visible. His work depicts an urban setting, the lines suggest streets and words are like signs that pedestrians encounter every day.

Artists create art to tell a story, capture a landscape or simply arrange colors on a canvas to create beauty. An artist's canvas is their story; a poet's poem is their canvas. An artist and poet use the paper and canvas to express their thoughts; that is their outlet. By analyzing an artist's work or a poet's poem, students will recognize shared vocabulary between visual arts and poetry, reinforce literacy skills, create their own visual poems, and, above all, use their imagination.

The painting above also has elements that are used in writing poetry. The artist's placement of objects on the canvas is similar to a poet's addition of line breaks in a poem. A poet conveys his personality or identity in his poems; an artist displays the same kind of revealing message in his work. May Swenson, a poet, says about her work: "I want to make my poems do what they say spaces between lines are actively and visually important too." ⁴ Swenson reminds us that poetry has a visual dimension. White space in a painting and line space in a poem convey breaks in reading the poem or painting, so the reader or the viewer's eyes move easily through the poem or painting

When an artist creates a painting there will be a mark on the canvas. Depending on the piece of art a skillful artist will add color, shape in a repeated pattern, and infuse movement into the piece, all the while being conscious of the use of white space and balance. An artist is observing his or her own work to communicate a message or express a feeling. Artists are looking to fill the canvas with objects and repeat them as needed to create movement and balance. Artists are visual thinkers continually observing, arranging and refining their work. I want my students to gain these important attributes of an artist.

Ekphrastic poetry combines poems and art to convey a powerful message. The word Ekphrasis comes from the Greek, ek meaning "out" and phrasis meaning "speak" — combined meaning out of expression. Ekphrastic poetry joins two art forms together that express feelings either on canvas or paper. An artist claims "I paint what I see," the poet will always see the painting as the artist sees the world that he or she has painted, saying "I see what I say." ⁵ Pictures answer questions in your mind, always adding more information to the poem. Poems and art share a common language. Connecting the art forms together creates a stronger message. The expectation in the art room is to use art talk (appropriate art vocabulary) when speaking inside the room. When a reader reads poetry out loud, imagery is created in the reader's mind, so complementing the poem with images is a natural progression.

Charles Demuth, an artist friend of Stuart Davis, created a painting called I saw the Figure 5 in Gold. A mutual acquaintance of both men was a poet named William Carlos Williams. Williams was so inspired by Demuth's painting that he wrote a poem about the painting he was familiar with. Williams later reflected about his poem, "I was determined to use the material I knew" ⁶. Below is a part of the poem that describes some of the images found in Demuth's painting such as the siren, wheels, fire truck, movement, and sounds.

    On a red
    firetruck
    moving
    tense
    unheeded
    to gong clangs
    siren howls
    and wheels rumbling
    through the dark city.
  

The painting has repeated diagonal lines to show the movement of the fire truck wheels. The red rectangles depict the fire truck. The grey color represents the metal and the clanging sounds coming from a fire truck. Below is an example of how I would use it in my classroom, by creating a Venn diagram or something as simple as this:

Many artists created paintings or sculptures that inspired poems such as Brueghel's "Winter" by Rutger Kopeland and "Edward Hopper and the House by the Railroad" by Edward Hirsch. The poem "The Weary Blues" by Langston Hughes did not inspire a painting but did inspire a book cover of the same name. This book cover is incredible for depicting Hughes' poem "The Weary Blues".

    Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
    I heard a Negro play
    Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
    By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
    He did a lazy sway….
    He did a lazy sway….
    To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
    With his ebony hands on each ivory key
    He made that poor piano moan with melody.
    O Blues!
    Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
    He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
    Sweet Blues!
    Coming from a black man's soul.
    O Blues!
  

The cover was illustrated by a Mexican artist named Miguel Covarrubias. Covarrubias and Hughes enjoyed Jazz music and were aware of the culture in the American South. The book cover illustration and the poem share similar elements such as line, shape, and movement. The cover is cartoon-like, very simplistic with shapes, and has minimal color. The first stanza places an image of a black man playing a mellow song late one night in the reader's mind. The black man is arranged in the position of leaning forward to create movement. The angle of the piano along with the man leaning forward creates the sense of swaying to the music. He is singing out and swaying to the beat, depicting the first line "rocking back and forth". The poem is indented where the song is being sung. Visually, Langston's indentations create the look of the piano keys. The line in the poem "an old gas light" is illustrated by the use of the warm colors yellow, orange, and red. The black man's fingers are crooked, expressing the idea that the man is an older crooner.