Art About Town: Berkeley, Addison Street Poetry Panels... "A Textbook Of Poetry, 21 By Jack Spicer

"There is something about poetry beyond prose logic, there is mystery in it, not to be explained but admired."

~Edward Young

A Textbook Of Poetry, 21
By Jack Spicer

Hold to the future. With firm hands. The future of each afterlife, of each ghost, of each word that is about to be mentioned.

Don't say put beauty in here for the past, on account of the past.
On account of the past nothing has happened.

Stick to the new. With glue, paste it there continually what God and man created. Your fingers catch at the edge of what you are pasting.

You have left the boy's club where the past matters. The future of your words matters. That future is continually in the past.

That pathology leads to new paths and pathfinding. All the way down past the future. The words go swimming past you as if they were blue fish.

I love the Addison Street Poetry Panels and visit when I can. They inspire me, and calm my nerves, and remind me that even in the toughest time, there is truth and beauty just around the corner! Addison Street is a very special place on this earth.

Art About Town: Berkeley... "In Topaz" By Toyo Suyemoto

"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen."

~Leonardo da Vinci

Here is one more poem, from the Addison street poetry panels. I like this one very much, but then again, most of the poems in this project speak to me. 

In Topaz
By Toyo Suyemoto

Can this hard earth break wide
   The stiff stillness of snow
And yield me promise that
    This is not always so?

Surely, the warmth of sun
  Can pierce the earth ice-bound,
Until grass comes to life,
  Outwitting barren ground!

The eastern states have had a dreadfully snowy season, and I am sure that the first warm spring day will feel like a little piece of heaven! But this poem speaks to me beyond the obvious. It gives me hope that like cold days, cold relationships don't always last forever. Eventually the sun comes out, again, and that cold is nowhere to be found. Not on the mind. Not in the season.

Just forgiven.

Just forgotten.


Mood: Happy

~Me :)

Art About Town: Berkeley... A Poem And A Sculpture

"Strange New Cottage In Berkeley"
By Allen Ginsburg

"Concentrate on what you want to say to yourself and your friends. Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness. You say what you want to say when you don't care who's listening."

~Allen Ginsberg

I look to a lot of different sources to influence and inspire my photography. Poetry, sculpture, music, literature, you name the art, I will bury myself in it to help me look at life differently, or at least with new perspectives. I get excited by other peoples art! I do! When I find someone who is truly talented, I want to know more! So, I study. Not to gain their perspective, but to challenge my own. I am lucky enough to live in the Bay Area, a place of immense culture and art. In Berkeley, there is always something to see. I know that sounds like a big statement, but it's true. You should walk around Berkeley and take a deep look around. There is a vibe the transcends decades. The architecture, the history, the art, the people, the students, it's all here, ready to be discovered. I am very lucky to fall in love with the town deeper with each new camera jaunt. 

A Strange New Cottage In Berkeley
By Allen Ginsberg

All afternoon cutting bramble blackberries off a tottering brown fence
under a low branch with its rotten apricots miscellaneous under the 
leaves,
fixing the drip in the intricate gut machinery of a new toilet;
found a good coffeepot in the vines by the porch, rolled a big tire out
of the scarlet bushes, hid my marijuana;
wet the flowers, playing the sunlit water each to each, returning for
godly extra drops for the stringbeans and daisies;
three times walked round the grass and sighed absently;
my reward, when the garden fed me it's plums from the form of a
small tree in the corner,
an angel thoughtful of my stomach, and my dry and lovelorn tongue.

And Now For Some Sculpture...


"Caliope" By Joe Slusky

"Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It's that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that's what the poet does."

~Allen Ginsberg

Mood: Inspired

~Me :)