Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2003SYR07
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
First Warm Night. The Earth's
poster information
Description
First warm night. The earth's
naked now except for its
bracelet of peepers
On spring nights at our house in Fleming, south of Auburn, we can hear lots of peepers from our back deck. For me, that's one of the best sounds in nature.
They also have an emotional resonance for me, because they mean a lot to my wife. She grew up in a rural area of New York, and peepers were important to her. Sometimes, when there's lots of them, it sounds like rhythmical chanting. That and the ambience of a spring night, the feeling of what lies ahead for the season—it's a wonderful experience.
The earth's nakedness at those moments evokes a kind of sensual feeling—almost sexual. It's the sense of the earth as a living beautiful thing. You can get the same feeling in other seasons, but for me, spring's the best.
My work is graphic, mostly based in collage and some painting, and that's how I chose to do my haiku project: with bright colors and a strong sense of line and design.
I've been working with cut paper for a long time, and I've really solidified that technique in my time at Syracuse. Mostly I work with cut paper from magazines, pictures and other objects. I cut every piece by hand, after I do the drawing. The final piece consists of interesting textures and colors from different images, to create something unlike any other painting.