I am in a seminar class called The Designer's Voice, in which we talk about our worldviews, meet some interesting speakers, and read articles related to finding our individual voices. This week we all wrote poems, motivated to some extent by Pablo Neruda's "Ode to Common Things." It was really great to hear everyone's poetry, which absolutely reflected each person's inner voice. Here is mine:
Meditation on a Cup of Coffee
-Karen Shakespear
A time apart
sacred, reserved,
given space, encouraged,
allowed and understood.
A cup of warmth and comfort,
a passage to a place
of inspiration, motivation,
energy and grace.
Physically fleeting, a whiff of grounds
with a promise of endurance,
of stimulus found.
A magic ritual
the affirmation of a faith.
A complex intertwining,
participation in a race.
Imagination, history, exploration and romance,
power struggles of caffeine
chemistry in a dance
Atoms in the brew, electrons flying through the mind,
But this
is the seduction of a ritual,
the grip of built relations:
immutable, invisible, complete and indivisible.
Wordless meaning, untouched by symbols
that laughs at human passions
Those efforts of a bean
yearning to understand his branch;
Those wild dreams of fundamental truth
born in the wrinkles of each plant.
Screaming everything
is all there is.
All the wrongs,
all the causes,
all the longings,
and all the losses.
It doesn’t matter
that we can’t see it;
we don’t know it
can’t claim it.
No one can teach it,
write it,
buy it,
or name it.
Because we are it.
We make it.
We play it, we fake it;
we build it and brake it,
we mix it and bake it.
And serve it, with warm coffee,
seven days a week:
reflections and expressions,
perceptions of the deep.
This is my book project for art studio class. Yesterday was a really good day for the class critiques. The professor, Matt Kahn, laughed like a five-year-old over David's temperature-sensitive pillow, hugged Brooke for her wooden bowl, called Stephanie's wireframe gestural sculpture "exquisite," and teared up over this little book.
