\nwith the statues<\/em> \u2013<\/p>\n
leaves swirl
\ninto the atrium\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 drift
\nbetween steel
\nglass\u00a0\u00a0 stone<\/p>\n
a man
\ncast in bronze\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 stalks
\nthrough a flurry
\nof programmes
\nthe woman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 elongated
\ntowers overhead
\nstares back\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 forward
\nalong the century<\/p>\n
watches men walk
\non the moon.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Helen Lowe<\/p>\n
Published in JAAM 28:<\/strong> Dance dance dance<\/strong>, <\/em>2010<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n As I noted in March 26th\u2019s Tuesday Poem post<\/a>, I am currently running a series of poems in response to works of art (ie \u201cekphrastic\u201d poems), which will include a note from the poet. This week\u2019s poem is my own work, Giacometti<\/em>, so I am providing the poet’s note in accordance with the form of past weeks. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n I wrote Giacometti<\/em> in response to the exhibition of sculptures, prints & drawings from the Maeght Foundation, including the “walking man” and “giant woman” (Grandes Femmes) pieces from the Chase Manhattan Plaza project (1960), which was featured in the Christchurch Art Gallery, November 2006 \u2013 February 2007.<\/p>\n For me, poems often derive from ‘sparks’ of experience. In this case the Giacometti exhibition was amongst the first major exhibitions for the newly opened, new Christchurch Art Gallery building, and I recall there being a real sense of excitement about that in the community—both for the new building and the major exhibition: we all wanted to go and see the statues.<\/p>\n The notion of ‘dancing’ with the statues sparked in part from that sense of excitement and the flurry of people coming and going through the new foyer area—in itself conceived much like an enclosed plaza—and although the leaves swirling into it were real, the words also allude to the sense in which programmes also became ‘leaves’ amongst that flurry of people all engaged in their own individual dance with the statues.<\/p>\n The poem focuses on the “walking man” and “giant woman” pieces from the Chase Manhattan Plaza project because those were the two that most “spoke” to me in the exhibition. The woman in particular conveyed a great deal which may or may not have been intended by the sculptor: the sense in which the twentieth century is the one in which women stepped away from the circumscribed roles of the past and became “giants”, as well as the tremendous array of events the ‘new women’ of that century were witness too. I could have focused on world wars, the Great Depression, the holocaust, the atom bomb–but I chose to focus on the event that for me, more than any other, was a similar stepping away from the known past:<\/p>\n “stares back\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 forward<\/em> watches men walk<\/em> —<\/p>\n About the Poet:<\/strong><\/p>\n This is my blog, so I will not restate my bio here. But for those of you who are interested and have not already done so, please feel free to explore further via the navigation buttons above, or under the Categories in the sidebar.<\/p>\n Since it’s Tuesday, if you are particularly interested in my poetry, you will find a Poetry page and poems under Other Writing<\/a> (above)— as well as under Poetry<\/a> in the sidebar. (If the poem in the latter doesn’t have a “by ‘poet’s name’ ” tag in the title, then it’s most likely one of mine.)\u00a0 \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Giacometti please do not dance with the statues \u2013 leaves swirl into the atrium\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 drift between steel glass\u00a0\u00a0 stone a man cast in bronze\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 stalks through a flurry of programmes the woman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 elongated towers overhead stares back\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 forward along the century watches men walk on the moon. \u00a9 Helen Lowe Published in JAAM 28: Dance […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20262"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20284,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20262\/revisions\/20284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Poet’s Note from<\/em> Helen Lowe:<\/h3>\n
\nalong the century<\/em><\/p>\n
\non the moon.”<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/TuesPoem.jpg\" "\\"TuesPoem\\"")
<\/a>To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon<\/strong> in the sidebar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"