Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2005SYR15
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
Jazz in Clinton Square
poster information
Description
Jazz in Clinton Square:
Here, the lap steel guitar—there
Summer lightning strikes
I teach at the downtown YMCA. I was returning from a summer class there on writing haiku, and there was a summer jazz concert in Clinton Square. A summer storm also was approaching, and so I could see the distant lightning and at the same time hear a lap guitar.
It was as if the steel guitar was the sound of lightning. That was a moment of synesthesia, as when the sight or sound of something produces a reaction in another sense.
This is fitting for haiku—in fact one of Basho's best haiku is very synesthetic, in which he describes the sounds crickets soaking into rocks in summer.
I am a big fan of country music so I've always liked steel guitar. I was attracted to the idea of a steel guitar because it's a very distinct visual cue. It's not conceptual. If I say, “lap steel guitar,” people are going to form a visual relationship with the word. So with that focus I was able to form a composition.
The piece actually took me a couple of attempts. My first composition was very static. To me, jazz should be flowing, easy and graceful. My first figure looked stiff and uncomfortable. With the second attempt I zoomed in to capture the feeling of jazz, the beauty of the steel guitar and still hint at Clinton Square.