Poet: Pamela Johnson Parker

This poem was written in response to Kevin Morrow's art—can you talk about the experience of finding words that were in conversation with the image?
I had begun and discarded a much longer piece related to modern literature and its classical roots; a poem about Joyce's Ulysses was part of this. When I saw Kevin's gorgeous work, it reminded me of the history that a tree tells through its rings. This led me to the original Odyssey and its living-tree bed. I immediately focused on another version—one that was both Odysseus and Penelope's story and also my retelling of Kevin's image. (I still have Molly Bloom in there, though! She's not able to be silenced).

What leapt out first from Kevin's art? A particular image? A mood? A line?
It was the spirals suggesting the cross-sections of a tree.

Paired with the art, do you think the poem does something different or has a different tone?
I think its tone now has more gravitas, plus there's that lovely symmetry between his lines and my interwoven ones.

Have you ever written poems in response to art before? What was the experience like for you?
I've written a few ekphrastic poems, but this was my first experience with giving art a voice that wasn't the artist's own.

If your poem were an animal, what would it be?
I have no idea, because I no longer see my poem as discrete from the image.

If the broadside collaboration were an animal, what would it be?
A pair of doves.

Read any good books lately?
Jericho Brown's Please is the best book I've read this year. Go buy it!
(Editor's Note: "Open," a poem from Please was Broadsided September 1, 2008: see it or go ahead and Download the Broadsided file.)

Seen any good art exhibits lately?
Yes—I've been to the Chicago Art Institute lately. I loved their sculpture garden, and was there when a class on drawing was being held. (I was a shameless eavesdropper and hope to turn that into a poem).

Anything else?
Thank you so much for allowing me to participate. I'm really honored you chose my poem.

Artist: Kevin Morrow

This image was created outside of the usual Broadsided "respond to writing" system—can you talk about its origins?
This drawing like so much of my work focuses on the simple complexity of nature. If feel that it is obvious enough to say I am interested in the simple yet complex aesthetic of tree rings and patterns such as that throughout nature.

What surprises you about Pamela's poem in conversation with your art?
I was really excited to see that she created a story rather than just focus writing about the tree, she created this interesting narrative around the 'idea' of the drawing.

What did you expect a writer to pick up on from "Collective Origins"?
I must admit that I fully expected the tree to be apparent in the poem somewhere, but I was very happy to see the way that Ms. Johnson Parker departed with the idea to create such a wonderful poem.

Paired with the poem, do you think the art does something different or has a different tone?
I feel that paired with the poem now, gives the drawing a more specific life to the viewer. That could be our tree in the yard, or the one that one day is in the forest and is keeping us warm in the fire the next...it gives a personal relation, rather than just being a relatively open drawing.

If your art were an animal, what would it be?
Some sort of Migratory Bird

If the Broadside collaboration were an animal, what would it be?
A Bird Watcher

Read any good books lately?
Open Horizons by Sigurd F. Olson, Lust for Life by Irving Stone, Abraham Lincoln, Selected Speeches and Writings edited by Gore Vidal. Many others that have been partially read, put down, picked back up again, put down...we all do it...they'll be finished someday...

Seen any good art lately?
"Jan Lievens, Out of the Shadow of Rembrandt" at the Milwaukee Art Museum. "Something Wicked this way Comes" at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.