Dioxazine Eyes Scrying (click here to hear this poem read)
palette knives flick interference red
pouring sublimation and holy rites along
horizons of Mehndi adorned canopic jars
eons of sounding bells striking
like vestigial reflexes
Naples yellow under French ultramarine hues
in drift chambers where saturation
blankets Antarctic glaciers sloughing into
anti-cavitation valves emoting indigo
in transcendental release
sienna fidelity blurs marigold rituals as
deep turquoise strokes plebian decorum
nuances of cadmium connect rustling wisteria
highlighted by terre verte jaune brillant imperial
dioxazine eyes scrying those
ever-fixed marks
Chromapoetica 
(From the author) As a nonrepresentational painter I’ve often wanted to see if nonrepresentational poetry is possible. Inspired by experimental poetry I viewed last week which was only mildly intellectually stimulating (the concepts were not phenomenally gripping and the execution of some of the work, which simply sampled other text or in the worst case scenario was written in binary code 1010 00001 100001 1101, etc. left me wanting something more luscious and accessible). In my painting pieces work because they don’t break all the rules at once. Also, while they may not represent things or people they are not meaningless blather either. They are an attempt to communicate through a new language, one with logic, rules, purpose, but unfamiliar and still ripe with exotic possibilities. They are paintings which speak of things that overused concepts or simple relationships obfuscate and therefore require new forms. Beauty still shows up, the ecology of the work provides structure, and meaning paradoxically is still conveyed. In investigating nonrepresentational poetry I found I still wanted to retain elements of beauty, emphasize sounds, structure the relationship of words to one another while confusing a bit the concept of phrases, and give an overall impression of meaning that would be complex enough to experience but not summarize. Thank you all for engaging the work and providing feedback.
This is rich in imagery and vocabulary. My first concern is that I read all poetry out loud to give it voice, often picking up nuances that don’t come through the visual word. This is not a read out loud poem for me. I tripped and tripped because of the word choices. It is possible that the vocabulary is too rich and overpowers the message. It is also possible that I have clumsy pronunciation.
You may want to break this into stanzas so that the words have an opportunity to shine rather than being part of a mass of words.
Were the text color changes intentional? The lighter lines and words may be perceived as afterthoughts.
My crit is only suggestion. Please take what you want and toss the rest if you choose. If you rewrite and want me to take another look, please let me know.
I hope I was able to help. Thanks for the opportunity and for listening.
Beth
The text colors don’t show on my screen and it is broken into stanzas so I’m not sure what’s happening with that or how I can fix it. All the other experimental pieces I have recorded myself reading but I didn’t have time for that today. I’ll try to get that done and then I will experience the tripping and see how to change things. Thank you for your feedback.
Beth, I’ve added the MP3, I hope it helps.
hey there…not seeing stanzas on my end either but i got no colors to contend with…the imagery is wow…when i got to the end i needed to breath…wish i could see your stanza breaks as that would be my biggest crit…room to breath…
I tried again to get the stanza breaks to show. It’s showing up on our other computer so I am hopeful it’s fixed. Thanks for the feedback!
For me (an artist in love with color) this is just “delicious.” As Anna said, I think you’ve accomplished the feat of nonrepresentational poetry. I’m putting out a prompt on Monday and this poem would be so apt if you would like to join by adding the link to comments. Now I’m going to read it again for texture…my other favorite element of art. :0)
Thanks, sorry it wasn’t clear but I am Anna, I just didn’t want my explaination to color a readers initial perception so I put my justification in the comments section. I’d love to participate in the Monday prompt. I’ll do that now. Thank you for engaging the work!
Ooooh. Just listened! *****
First, let me start out by saying I have rarely met poetry that uses words with such precision and boldness as yours. I have a respectable traditional vocabulary, but I have yet to read one of your poems where I didn’t need to refer to a dictionary to really understand the message (here with anit-cavitational–I am blown away by the way you used it.). I say this not as a crit, but as praise. Words are central to idea–the more precise we can be, the more we can challenge the reading mind to think about what’s being said in detail, to me the more effective the poem in releasing something, some personal deeper understanding, in the reader. It may turn off some people, but it excites and involves me.
As far as critque, I’m lousy at it. I thought the experimental feel was strong here, the use of color associations creative and effective, but this is a poem that does not release it’s fragrance till it’s been passed more than once through the press of re-reading. If that’s what you were aiming for, you’ve been successful. I certainly enjoyed it, anyway.
First, thank you for understanding the impetus behind the language. The precision in language you speak of is of utmost importance to me, especially in the experimental work where I’m trying to reframe, or shift sideways, mental patterns that may allow us to finish lines in poetry or guess where the piece is going. The process is designed to ask the reader to really participate in the creation of meaning by the honing of their attention. I’m so happy you investigated anti-cavitation valve because these juxtapositions are designed to add potency. Also, the re-reading is part of my evaluation process for art. It’s effective if you can come back to it again and gain something new. For me, it is a gift that I want to give you, the reader, something to investigate, rethink, feel again, and engage again with fresh eyes. If I could convey these complex, sometimes paradoxical meanings in another way I would. I’m glad that makes things engaging for you.
As Gerhard Richter stated in response to his nonrepresentational painting, “Abstract pictures are fictive models, because they make visible a reality that we can neither see nor describe, but whose existence we can postulate. We denote this reality in negative terms: the unknown, the incomprehensible, the infinite. And for thousands of years we have been depicting it through surrogate images of heaven and hell, gods and devils.
In abstract painting we have found a better way of gaining access to the unvisualizable, the incomprehensible; because abstract painting deploys the utmost visual immediacy – all the resources of art, in fact – in order to depict ‘nothing’. Accustomed to pictures in which we recognize something real, we rightly refuse to regard mere color (however multifarious) as the thing visualized. Instead we accept that we are seeing the unvisualizable: that which has never been seen before and is not visible. This is not some abstruse game but a matter of sheer necessity: the unknown simultaneously alarms us and fills us with hope, and so we accept the pictures as a possible way to make the inexplicable more explicable, or at all events more accessible.”
Thank you for your extremely helpful feedback.
it doesn’t get much better than this. This is very good. I like ‘Naples yellow under French ultramarine hues
in drift chambers where saturation
blankets Antarctic glaciers sloughing into
anti-cavitation valves emoting indigo’
extremely good.
I’m so glad you stopped by to read it, I’ve been inspired by your work. Thank you again.
Anna, for me the poem is delicious in its imagery, and use of colour. I am also an artist by trade, so this poem spoke to me. I am absolutely terrible at giving critique, and do prefer to leave it to the people who know what they are talking about.
Pamela
A fascinating experiment, Anna — Surely the sort of uncorsetting the aesthetic into a more fluid freedom is bold and dangerous – the way Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” caused a riot at its Paris premiere — certainly the bounds of tradition have to be defied, and to write a “nonrepresentational” poem is to paint without regard for natural contours, most of which are constructs anyway of what may perhaps be a former mind, one which cannot be grown from without defiance. Like Rilke said of Orpheus, “It is by overstepping that he obeys.” I loved the thick gobbets of color splashed helterskelterwise, suggesting a Hand which is passionately overstepping in order to cross Over. The difficulty always lies in leaving enough surface and reference so that the poem is not too much a solo journey — so that an audience can still connect with it. Nothing is creative that does not turn or trope from a base — the literature which all poems must spring from: so that balance of the dance is to whirl wildly, which you do, while leaving a skein of reference to help us follow through the labyrinth. I don’t mean this as critcism — this was an exhilirating read. The title “Dioxazine Eyes Scrying” lets us know that we’re in for a strange alchemical dive, but I wonder if something like “Dioxazine (The Purple Gaze of Persephone)” or something might say to the reader, “Here’s how you can follow.” Maybe that’s not necessary or at all what your aesthetic demands, but this reader would have felt more invited into what turned into a magnificent poem. Great work …
Thank you for your thoughtful commentary; I see your point. I did leave what I saw as the ‘follow’ by quoting from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116:
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
but that comes at the very end.
I like that you picked up on the purple as a connection to the sacred. This is ever the challenge with language because in painting while I still have people who experience pareidolia and see figures in the work, when none are present, it doesn’t happen often. However, language largely draws figurative pictures in our minds. My diction helps avoid associations that the reader comes to the work with by throwing in things they probably don’t encounter every day or have years of encrusted meaning around. I greatly appreciate your feedback and will give it some further thought. In the meantime I’ll try to avoid causing riots :).