Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Summer: A Little Scrapbook in Art

It's that time again: I ran out of blog post ideas so I'm going to take a bunch of other people's art and show it to you. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out my other two posts on this theme. This time, the theme is the whole season of summer. Poems, photos, short stories, visual art, songs, etc, all about summer. Here we go:

(Vincent van Gogh)

There came a wind like a bugle (by Emily Dickinson)

There came a Wind like a Bugle-
It quivered through the Grass,
And a Green Chill upon the Heat
So ominous did pass
We barred the Windows and the Doors
As from an Emerald Ghost-
The Doom's electric Moccasin
That very instant passed-
On a strange Mob of panting Trees,
And Fences fled away,
And Rivers where the Houses ran
Those looked that lived- that Day-
The Bell within the steeple wild
The flying tidings told-
How much can come
And much can go,
And yet abide the World!

("Summer Begs" by Sarah Jaffe)

Verdant May (by me!)

In my mouth, the taste of mango 
I had for breakfast.
White blossoms of spring
strewn on the margins of the parking lot.
Waft of honeysuckle on the air.

The rain,
liquid sky of grey clouds,
streams around me,
curtain into forgotten dreams.
I enter it,
waking haze.

Green wilderness
creeping at the edges of our
constructions.

Worlds upon worlds
in the woods-
coming alive like a tiger's breath
to the noon of summer.

I crack open an edamame pod
and examine its sticky skins.
Life opens petals infinitely,
releasing the wild scents
out with the May rain.

 
(Amanda Clark)

("Swimming" by Florence and the Machine)

Heaven and Earth (by Louise Gluck)

Where one finishes, the other begins.
On top, a band of blue; underneath,
a band of green and gold, green and deep rose.

John stands at the horizon: he wants
both at once, he wants
everything at once.

The extremes are easy. Only
the middle is a puzzle. Midsummer-
everything is possible.

Meaning: never again will life end.

How can I leave my husband
standing in the garden
dreaming this sort of thing, holding
his rake, triumphantly
preparing to announce this discovery

as the fire of the summer sun
truly does stall
being entirely contained by
the burning maples
at the garden's border.

("Put Your Records On" by Corrine Bailey Rae)

 
(designed by the Boue sisters) 

("St. Clarity" by the Paper Kites)

A whole season is pretty difficult to encapsulate in one blog post with a handful of works of art, but these are good ones, I think. If you have any of your own favorite summer artworks, feel free to share in the comments!
Thanks for reading,
Ariel

1 comment:

  1. I, of course, hate summer. However, there are some (very few) redeeming qualities to summer that I actually like. The smell of night blooming jasmine is one of them:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsW8rXPcnM0

    ReplyDelete