The Table (La Mesa) | The Beloved Infidel
The table, la mesa, all geometry
contained within her plane,
she wobbles slightly,
one leg missing its glider
or perhaps it is just worn,
or cut slightly shorter than the others,
a charming albeit irritating flaw.
A grommet pierces her surface
tunneling from above to below,
two universes unaware of each other,
this table
who does not know herself.
- Eugene A. Melino
First published in the catalogue for The Infinite: Arch and Line, the solo show by the artist Anna Carina Sinocchi, June 10, 2019, to January 15, 2020, at the Hamilton Club Gallery, Passaic County Community College in Paterson, New Jersey.
For the catalogue accompanying my current art exhibit, The Infinite: Arch and Line, I wanted to intersperse poetry as well as fragments of poems throughout its pages. Like viewing art, reading poetry can be a very immediate and intimate experience. By integrating the lyrical with the visual, I pull the viewer closer to my works. It was important for me to find poetry that matched the art in both style and content.
Poetry is visual, much of its power lying in its imagery. It can conjure pictures in one’s mind or call forth a sense of place. But also, how a poem sits on the background of a stark, white page utilizes space and creates a visual effect. William Carlos Williams’ use of poetic lineation comes to mind. I personally enjoy staring at the poem against a stark page. It calls attention to itself; it owns the page and sets the reader up for an intimate experience.
In poetry the repetition of words creates drama, intensifying the poet’s message in a given line. But the repetition of words also generates a visual pattern, and pattern is an element in visual art. Pattern can be decorative, and it can provide structure and stability to the overall composition. (I wonder if poets also decorate their work with repetition.)
Lastly, poetry, like visual art, generates a mood. Using elements such as setting, tone and theme, the poet evokes feeling in the reader. Visual artists go about this by making choices in regards to the elements of color, line, space and texture, or by abstracting the subject matter altogether. Together on the same page, the poem and work of art can reinforce each other’s mood, or play against each other in interesting and provocative ways.
Anna Carina Sinocchi, July 2019
Image: “Transfiguration,” 2016, 94″ x 32″, mixed media on muslin, by Anna Carina Sinocchi, one of the paintings featured in her solo show.Used with permission from the artist.
For details about the solo show, visit the artist’s Facebook page here. To find out more about the artist, visit her website here.
Originally published at https://thebelovedinfidel.com on July 10, 2019.
