I have left the beginner for the end, being hypertextually inclined to screw with linearity that way.
Steve Ersinghaus is the starting point for the 100 Days: Summer 2009 project, a reversal of his role with Carianne Mack in last year’s 100 Paintings and Poems. It is easy to see why we have so many visual artists in the group; Steve not only is near unmatchable in story or poetry in his vivid imagery and narrative style, but he paints pictures with words that create inspiration to interpret graphically.
There is motion more than action, characters laid open to explore. For example, read this from #13 The Flight:
You see your wife disappear around the house but her name is lost to the width of your tongue. You find the image of the children in their white shorts and clean shoes in the grass and the dog watching them lovely and strange. They are sounds to listen for, colors to draw, mysteries to penetrate eventually, maybe on landing, and you wish you could remember her name. You wish you could touch her, the way you always did, which you, of course, can remember.
The wind is warm on your face, and you tell the world beneath you, which has the color of stone and glass, that you could always try harder. You could always try harder to remember but its impossible.
Yes, he’s an English Professor, but more, he’s an artist, a writer, a poet, and open to all manner of expressing the forms. More from Steve at his regular website here.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology