Forms
colors
sensuous relationships
rhythms
textures
tones
transmutations of energy
all belong to the natural world.
Before humans arrived, their power was there; they were nameless yet not powerless. To touch their power, humans had to name them: whorl, branch, rift, stipple, crust, cone, striation, froth, sponge, flake, fringe, gully, rut, tuft, grain, bunch, slime, scale, spine, streak, globe.
Over so many millennia, so many cultures, humans have reached into preexisting nature and made art:
Over so many millennia, so many cultures, humans have reached into preexisting nature and made art:
to celebrate
to drive off evil
to nourish memory
to conjure the desired visitation.
to drive off evil
to nourish memory
to conjure the desired visitation.
The revolutionary artist, the relayer of possibility, draws on such powers, in opposition to a technocratic society's hatred of multiformity, hatred of the natural world, hatred of the body, hatred of darkness and women, hatred of disobedience.
The revolutionary poet loves people,
rivers,
other creatures,
stones,
trees inseparably from art,
and is not ashamed of any of these loves, and for them conjures a language that is public, intimate, inviting, terrifying and beloved."
from: What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics
by: Adrienne Rich, published by Norton & Company, Inc, 1993
1000 copies were printed
This compelling piece was given to the Seacoast Area Fiber Artists by one of its members at the holiday luncheon last week. I share it with you, my creative sisters and cyber friends.
