Here’s the Rothko poem-
Rothko
I’m in this space
This gallery space
And we’re having this chat
He and I
Even though he’s dead
And I’m not
Even though he’s Russian
And I’m not
We posture a while
Establish some mutual cred
Then he wants to show me something
Says he wants to make me understand
So he stands me in front of a piece
Puts me up close
And leaves me there
Without a word
I look and suddenly my eyes are drowned in paint,
I can no longer see
All I can do is look at the paint
That is smothering, suffocating
My eye and then I notice
The reds aren’t red
The blacks aren’t black
And the squares aren’t square
He comes back and pulls me out
We go for a drink at a bar down the street
I tell him that I’m starting to get it
And that I want to do some more
He laughs as if to himself
As only short dead Russians can
And I agree to take it steady
One thing at a time
I ask him about the cost,
About the restaurant
About the chapel
About the price to pay
He shrugs
What can he do?
He’s dead
On our second drink
I become bold
I press him on compression
The energy it must take
To distill all of that
Including the Greeks
Into a single canvas
He smiles and is gone
And I’m left with two drinks
And the fact that
The reds aren’t red
The blacks aren’t black
And the squares aren’t square
This seems to be quite popular but I’m not pleased with it. There’s a middle section about new ways of looking at stuff that I tried to write but couldn’t. I also think the conceit of going for a drink with the dead Russian is a bit contrived but at least this does make it seem more accessible.
The motivation for writing it was the desire to commmunicate my feelings about a particular panel- part of the late “black and grey” series because it was this panel that made me understand what Rothko was about. This was a revelation and I don’t think the poem does it justice. In the end (after many drafts) I decided to put some limits on the piece for the sake of accessibility and to make it more personal.
You might want to check out my Rothko poem on my blog.
I think you will see that we’re on about the same stuff with the suffocation.
I liked the middle section the best. I think that you’re right with the conceit about meeting him for drinks, it is contrived.
See what you mean re suffocation. It is contrived and more than a little manipulative but the really odd thing is that people seem to really like that section regardless…. I don’t.
OOh, with my amazing HTML talent, I was able to make most of my comment a hyperlink to my poem. My apologies.