Wild Things: Collection 1
Click a photograph to view the artist's collection, artist statement, and links to their work.
Wild Things: Collection 1
This first collection focuses on the intersection between poetry and visual arts, using Stevie Howell's Never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself. To contribute to this project, artists must have first read the collection's chosen poem and respond creatively in their medium of choice. The following is a non-exhaustive list of points of reflection that were considered by the artists of this collection:
Never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself
Write, I beg you. No, do not write.
- Kierkegaard, Repetition
You can't catalogue a litany.
I'm trying to figure out
what to do w/the remainder of my life.
I taught for decades. Was demoted to subbing. But showed
up at the wrong schools. At 19, I earned a
basketball scholarship. But fell, ataxic.
One dose Remicade stripped myelin. Unsheathed
involuntary laugher at monotone
voices, & multiples like SALE! SALE! SALE!, or crowds.
I've worked as a counsellor, &
/
you can catalogue a litany.
I see the cracks in things. You
from afar, for instance.
Given time, something
will strike one of us. Then what? Bedside. Recognizing the
grip-strength of a certain hand before hearing
the voice. Who am I to play God? Not w/birth
or death or health-but forgiveness. Mercy can be
misplaced as easily as keys. Eyeglasses
in the fridge. Remote in the liquor cabinet.
I'd do anything to re-gift
/
this love for you, this empathy, this
pathetic mimicry, to
inject concrete into sponge, remodel as
bone. It aches malignant, but I admire w/my whole
heart that you won't miss me, or won't say so, or
won't feel moral, or won't suffer regret-you
Stoic, you stone. I never saw a wild thing
feel sorry for itself, the way I should know
better, the way you don't. If I'm wrong
about what "they" feel,
I'd be the last to know.
Text by Stevie Howell, from I left nothing inside on purpose
http://steviehowell.ca/
This poem was originally inspired by a poem by D.H. Lawrence.
Self-Pity
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- Thematic interpretation:
- Love, heartbreak, and moving on
- Mercy
- Personal journey
- The wildness in others and self
- Poetic structure:
- Line breaks
- Page breaks
- Rhythmic structure
- Epigraph
- Specific passage:
- "you Stoic, you stone"
- "It aches malignant"
- "Mercy can be misplaced as easily as keys"
- "I never saw a wild thing/ feel sorry for itself"
- Language and word choice:
Never saw a wild thing feel sorry for itself
Write, I beg you. No, do not write.
- Kierkegaard, Repetition
You can't catalogue a litany.
I'm trying to figure out
what to do w/the remainder of my life.
I taught for decades. Was demoted to subbing. But showed
up at the wrong schools. At 19, I earned a
basketball scholarship. But fell, ataxic.
One dose Remicade stripped myelin. Unsheathed
involuntary laugher at monotone
voices, & multiples like SALE! SALE! SALE!, or crowds.
I've worked as a counsellor, &
/
you can catalogue a litany.
I see the cracks in things. You
from afar, for instance.
Given time, something
will strike one of us. Then what? Bedside. Recognizing the
grip-strength of a certain hand before hearing
the voice. Who am I to play God? Not w/birth
or death or health-but forgiveness. Mercy can be
misplaced as easily as keys. Eyeglasses
in the fridge. Remote in the liquor cabinet.
I'd do anything to re-gift
/
this love for you, this empathy, this
pathetic mimicry, to
inject concrete into sponge, remodel as
bone. It aches malignant, but I admire w/my whole
heart that you won't miss me, or won't say so, or
won't feel moral, or won't suffer regret-you
Stoic, you stone. I never saw a wild thing
feel sorry for itself, the way I should know
better, the way you don't. If I'm wrong
about what "they" feel,
I'd be the last to know.
Text by Stevie Howell, from I left nothing inside on purpose
http://steviehowell.ca/
This poem was originally inspired by a poem by D.H. Lawrence.
Self-Pity
I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.