Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2002SYR12
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
Fizz of Cicadas
poster information
Description
Fizz of cicadas
Slows as evening cools—lights hum
On in Armory
One thing that haikus do, especially those written by Basho, the most famous of the haiku writers, is they create equivalencies. So here there's an equivalency between the sound of the cicadas and the sound of the lights humming on.
It's a sound image that I've used before in poems. When the temperature rises or falls, the speed of the cicadas' song speeds up or slows down. It's kind of fascinating. They're like living thermometers.
So I'm thinking of a summer evening, and talking about cicadas, and the fizz of cicadas slowing as evening cools. Then, just as the cicadas wind down, the human element comes in—the lights. I like the way they always come on in a kind of hum.
I liked the idea of illustrating Armory Square, so I went there to sketch my own impression. I've been taking a landscape class, and working on site, and I prefer that to working from photographs. There's something more authentic to being outside.
Even when I go places, I'll do a sketch. It's more meaningful than a photograph. A photograph evokes a second in time. Whereas a sketch, you spend time absorbing the environment.
Initially, I did a pen and ink drawing for the haiku. Then, for the landscaping painting class, I had to do some paintings on site. That's when I actually did the piece that was selected for the poster.