Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2002SYR02
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Poem Inspiration Location
The City at Night
poster information
Description
The city at night.
Let me take off your glasses.
See, it's beautiful
The image I had was actually from the fifth floor of St. Joseph's hospital. I was there quite a bit with an aunt who was dying. If you look out, you get a nice view of the city. But also, if you're like me, and you're nearsighted, when you take off your glasses and look out, it's very cool.
When I stay in hotels in strange cities, I notice the same thing. One time I was visiting Atlanta, Ga., and I took out my contacts and looked out the hotel room. Again, it looks really beautiful without them. All the lights, they all blur together once you take your glasses off. When I was writing the haiku I was thinking of it more as a romantic situation, but the reality was me with my dying aunt, or in a hotel room by myself.
I prefer to do figurative work. So doing architecture was a good change of pace. And it was also challenging.
I came upon what I wanted to do, compositionally, pretty easily. I knew I wanted to do a collage of the buildings. And I wanted a dramatic perspective. I look for that sense of action in my figurative work, and I was hoping to generate similar drama with static buildings.
After that, the real challenge was depicting the city at night. Where should I put the highlight and the moonlight, and not lose the rest of the building? I had to have one source of light reflecting off all the buildings, not as they would actually be in the city.