$20
Item#: 2016SYR03
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.
Splashing in puddles
Umbrellas spin in the air
A childhood rainstorm
I grew up on a farm in Fulton, N.Y., where I loved to play in the rain. I remember splishing and splashing and running around in the downpour of a warm summer rain.
Summer is still my favorite time of the year. This area just comes alive with all the music and festivals. I remember one year when I went to the Jazz Fest with my son. It poured. It poured so hard that trying to share an umbrella simply didn't work. We got drenched.
This haiku is a childhood memory. As adults we tend to be much more reserved. Maybe we shouldn't be.
What I really liked about this poem was the amount of motion in it. It allowed me a strong opportunity to play around with the movement of the water during a storm. Water can be very dynamic. There's ripples and splashes and distorted images and falling raindrops and all sorts of things. When I was a kid, I loved playing in the rain, and I saw lots of other kids playing in it too. But as everyone got older, we stopped. As a young adult, sometimes when I see rain, I can only think of how inconvenient it is or how my clothes will get wet or how my glasses will fog up. But kids see so much more in a moment like that. To them, it can be wondrous and beautiful. I guess I am using this piece to capture those childhood moments and remember what they were like.