a DALE CHIHULY sculpture Frederik Meijer Gardens Michigan
here, Chihuly
here,
in front of
twisted tangled turns
Still in motion
but not
here,
the glass
smears my color
into forgetting
nature’s fragility
of self
here,
wrapped-up in sometimes
grotesque moments of shape
curves of sand
mince
so close into each other
here,
they’ve forgotten
they were once
individual
This poem grew out of my attendance at a mandatory professional development activity (kind of like taking required college courses). While on break, I wrote a description of an object. I think I did this because it was part of some activity for the professional development event.
Anyway, I took my description which used observations and concrete words (which is what I call vocabulary or words and phrases that name specific items - instead of using a lot of pronouns) into the revision process.
For me, the revision process took the writing through about four different versions before I got the poem you read.
In each revision, I pushed my writing choices and looked for ways to create a picture the reader would slowly begin to see.
I used the same rhetorical situation and strategies I shove in front of my students every chance I get:
1. Imagine your audience and what you know about them.
2. What do you know about the writer (in this it was myself).
3. What do you know about the purpose (I wanted to show a process in backwards action, like remembering. I wanted the grains of sand to have a voice that was collective and individual. Mostly, I wanted to play with different perspectives).
4. What kinds of writing tools do you have and what kinds do you need? For example descriptive strategies (like metaphor, simile, comparison), personification, short vs. long sentences, analysis, symbolic language, alliteration, calendar, clock time, temporal transitions, etc.
here,
in front of
twisted tangled turns
Still in motion
but not
here,
the glass
smears my color
into forgetting
nature’s fragility
of self
here,
wrapped-up in sometimes
grotesque moments of shape
curves of sand
mince
so close into each other
here,
they’ve forgotten
they were once
individual
This poem grew out of my attendance at a mandatory professional development activity (kind of like taking required college courses). While on break, I wrote a description of an object. I think I did this because it was part of some activity for the professional development event.
Anyway, I took my description which used observations and concrete words (which is what I call vocabulary or words and phrases that name specific items - instead of using a lot of pronouns) into the revision process.
For me, the revision process took the writing through about four different versions before I got the poem you read.
In each revision, I pushed my writing choices and looked for ways to create a picture the reader would slowly begin to see.
I used the same rhetorical situation and strategies I shove in front of my students every chance I get:
1. Imagine your audience and what you know about them.
2. What do you know about the writer (in this it was myself).
3. What do you know about the purpose (I wanted to show a process in backwards action, like remembering. I wanted the grains of sand to have a voice that was collective and individual. Mostly, I wanted to play with different perspectives).
4. What kinds of writing tools do you have and what kinds do you need? For example descriptive strategies (like metaphor, simile, comparison), personification, short vs. long sentences, analysis, symbolic language, alliteration, calendar, clock time, temporal transitions, etc.
Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country, at the University of Wisconsin. He continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he later established the glass program and taught for more than a decade.