6 Cherries for Family of 6

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:49:03 -0700

Mixed Media on Paper
22” x 30”

Davenport, Iowa

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 10:57:41 -0700

ROYAL AMERICAN SHOW

A poem I wrote for Visible Cites Project

http://visibleqc.blogspot.com/2009/10/poem-by-nancy-kiefer-royal-american.html

Must have been payday because Lila packed up the Cadillac and drove us over the Centennial Bridge to the carnival then gave us each a fat roll of tickets. Bruce had a broken arm but that didn’t stop him from getting in the rocket ship with me and there were no belts so we slipped all over and his cast came down and hit us both on our heads. The Mississippi Levee smelled of tar the hawkers sweaty and swearing and yelled hurry up buy this cinnamon treat and Lila said sure why not so we all got one and it was a piece of red glass wrapped around an apple something from a fairy tale it almost broke our teeth. Cotton Candy on a humid day in June doesn’t last you have to eat it fast before you go into the Fun House so we did and on that day it was hot like an attic in there and someone had peed on the slide the one you need to exit so we had to make our way backward out of that dark crooked unfun house in the chaos someone slammed me against a wall with their body then in the dimness one kind-voiced boy wearing a robin hood hat with a tall feather walked me out saying I was going to be okay. Wasn’t that me crying when we came out into daylight? Evidently because Lila said honey let’s take you home But Please Lila not before we see the woman with no head I begged and she said okay baby. I loved Lila that day and every day after because this lady neighbor with Jane Mansfield platinum hair and cat blue glasses called me baby on such a June afternoon while the woman with no head turned out to be fake an optical illusion I knew because I looked close and could tell.

Davenport Levee
Ink on Wood
2” x 1”
From Circus Ordinario
http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/Circus_Ordinario.html

July

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 -0700

A day on the San Juan Islands. A serene day on Cypress Island, a day the Madronas appear red in the late afternoon, a day calm yet filled with the fire of wild poppies. That kind of day.

Oil on Wood
22” x 30”

To The Water

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 23:13:54 -0700

Please stop by and check out my new work.

http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/To_the_Water_%28New%29.html

Tent
Mixed Media on Kitikata Paper
18” x 23”
Nancy Kiefer 2010

Tales and Parables

Fri, 2 Jul 2010 22:07:50 -0700

Please stop by and check out my new work.

http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/_Tales_and_Parables_%28New%29.html

Thanks A Poem by W.S. Merwin

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 23:37:55 -0700

Congratulations to W.S. Merwin,
Poet Laureate of the United States 2010

Listen with the night falling we are saying thank you we are stopping on the bridges to bow for the railings we are running out of the glass rooms with our mouths full of food to look at the sky and say thank you we are standing by the water looking out in different directions.
back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging after funerals we are saying thank you after the news of the dead  whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you looking up from tables we are saying thank you in a culture up to its chin in shame living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you over telephones we are saying thank you in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators remembering wars and the police at the back door and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you in the banks that use us we are saying thank you with the crooks in office with the rich and fashionable unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you
with the animals dying around us our lost feelings we are saying thank you with the forests falling faster than the minutes  of our lives we are saying thank you  with the words going out like cells of a brain  with the cities growing over us like the earth  we are saying thank you faster and faster  with nobody listening we are saying thank you we are saying thank you and waving dark though it is

From The Rain in the Trees by W.S. Merwin

Painting
BREAD
30”x 22”
Mixed Media
Nancy kiefer

Poppies

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:11:03 -0700

XVI

And what did the rubies say
standing before the pomegranates?

Why doesn’t Thursday talk itself
into coming after Friday?

Who shouted with glee
when the color blue was born?

Why does the earth grieve
when the violets appear?

XVII

Have you noticed that autumn
is like a yellow cow?

And how later the autumnal beast
is a dark skeleton?

And how winter collects
so many layers of blue?

And who asked springtime
For its kingdom of clean air?

From The Book of Questions by Pablo Neruda; translated by William O’Daly.

Ana Mendieta Speaks

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:13:12 -0700

From Artist Ana Mendieta

“The Spanish philosopher Ortega Garret once said: “To be a hero, to be heroic, is to be oneself.” This, I believe, is particularly relevant in regard to the attitude an artist should have within society. HOW CAN SOMEONE WHO IS ENDOWED WITH FEELING REMAIN INDIFFERENT? ONLY AS THE RESULT OF A FAR-REAChING AWAKENING WILL A PERSON BE MADE AWARE OF HIMSELF AND ONLY WITH THIS AWARENESS WILL THAT PERSON START TO LIVE AS A HUMAN BEING. Yet, paradoxically, it is also a form of exile from the world. It is this awareness of myself, this knowledge of myself, that leads me to engage in dialogue with the world around me through my art.”
Personal Writings
1982

Ana Mendieta (18 November 1948 – 8 September 1985) was a Cuban-American artist famous for her performance art and "earth-body" sculptural, photographic, and video work.

http://www.miamiartmuseum.org/exhibitions-pastt-mendieta.asp

A Title for the next book (2)

Tue, 25 May 2010 17:51:52 -0700

What about a title without words?

Title For My Next Book

Sun, 23 May 2010 14:46:23 -0700

Recently someone asked me what I will be writing next.
Today it came to me as I was driving away from an estate sale.
It’s kind of long. But works.

TITLE OF MY NEXT BOOK

The brokenheartedness of estate sales.
On a Sunday afternoon.
After a stint of writing.
Hungry, and desiring a drink.
But declining.
Then buying a piece of driftwood.
With little plastic eyes.

“I hate dignity.”

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 14:23:31 -0700

That’s what the Patchwork Girl of Oz said.

I wandered, I lay down.

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 19:37:22 -0700

I wandered,
I lay down.

Pencil on paper
4” x 4”
From The Garden
http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/In_the_Garden.html#3

Witness by Denise Levertov

Sat, 17 Apr 2010 17:54:23 -0700

Witness
 Sometimes the mountain is hidden from me in veils of cloud, sometimes I am hidden from the mountain in veils of inattention, apathy, fatigue, when I forget or refuse to go down to the shore or a few yards up the road, on a clear day, to reconfirm that witnessing presence.

 - DENISE LEVERTOV –

Piero
Oil on Canvas 3” x 4”
From Album Ill-Fitting Wig
http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/Ill-Fitting_Wig.html

Dulcet Lullaby

Fri, 2 Apr 2010 20:53:11 -0700

Dulcet Lullaby
by Suzanne Stratmann

After all: Forsythia is flowering, and the assurance of absolution blossoms also, now feverishly, just as the landscape flashes after long coldness into a blaze of yellow. This is grace. This is: renewal, lightness, and hope. This is remembrance of sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. This soothing, this sting.

After all. Divinity is not something we can ever achieve, though we may strive.

After all: though we’d had our era of ice, your eyes shone in their triangular blue fashion when we came together again. And we were lovely. Soon then it was the end and you died valiantly, denying mortality and working until you coiled up one morning in bed and surprising: took a last gasp. The architecture of you emptied: I entered the swirl for the first time, dipping slowly to assemble our us. And then I left, to gather the disbanded.

After all: I treasure the broken prop from your boat motor; the rusty oyster knife you gave me and never accused me of stealing; the Styrofoam cooler with a “FISH ON” bumper sticker slathered across the front, once full with ice and Hama Hama oysters; and memories I swear are real. In time, cleansed, peace came here to bloom.

After all: exoneration, merciful love, these are of grave import. Watery recollections of winks, warm square hands on my wedding day, and our talk of the weather were consequential. And then: a familiar signature pressed onto paper well after our détente, which demonstrates a lack of faith. In me. How weak is my twisted conviction.

After all: you died skinny and bismuth yellow and without parting assurances. Humble: it caught you. Ugliness and earthliness and, even as it ripped rage to the surface, its violence too reminds. We are minor. We are the unsplendid.

After all. After all: bathing in the memory-clotted gel of time, back and forth and back, years of circling through the wet, immersed in the teary sea that swelled after your death, I realize finally that what I was kissing was your yawn.

And how can this happen now, with the forsythia blooming around me, when we cannot kneel toward each other and hope?

suzanne vogel was born and grew up surrounded by the rolling hills of the palouse, in washington state. which thing she did not appreciate until much later. now, much later, suzanne vogel stratmann lives in arlington, virginia with her family, and besides all that that entails, she loves listening to music, cooking beautiful food, thinking about stuff, and writing.
http://stardustandrust.blogspot.com/

Painting by Nancy Kiefer
Forgiveness (after Rebecca Brown)
Acrylic and ink on canvas
32” x 35”

From Stream Album
http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/Stream.html

Kite

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 00:00:00 -0700

     “Tomorrow I'll be the wind upon the plain
and my heart itself will go
to the banks of the High Douro.

XV
     While you are dancing in a circle,
girls, sing:
The fields are already green,
April in his splendor has come.

     At the riverbank,
near the black oaks,
his silver sandals
we've seen shine.
The fields are already green,
April in his splendor has come.”

From Songs by Antonio Machado
Translated from the Spanish by Ivan Granger
Kite by Nancy Kiefer
http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/Artist_and_Kite-Maker.html

Voice

Sat, 27 Mar 2010 11:23:25 -0700

The voice in the eyes.

“She turned her head. Her eyes met his. In the landscape of the face an eye is set like a lake, for exploration.”

From Emmanuele! Emmanuele! by Caroline Gordon

Gethsemane Series

Nancy Kiefer
Walnut ink on paper
3” x 3”

One Inch Painting for a 24 Inch Day

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 09:27:43 -0700

Juggler
Ink on Wood
one inch by two inch

From Circus Ordinario
http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/Circus_Ordinario.html

Nancy Kiefer

Mississippi River Queen

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 06:53:39 -0700

Acrylic and ink on paper
30” x 41”

From Stream Album
http://www.nancykiefer.com/site/Albums/Pages/Stream.html

Sleepers Awake

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 19:17:47 -0800

Gethsemane Series
Inks on hand-made paper
3’ x 4”

Nancy Kiefer

Keeping Quiet A Callarse (Redux)

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 10:04:00 -0800

Happy New Year!
Once again, this poem by Pablo Neruda surfaces as the most appropriate for another year.

All year I search for the poem that expresses the renewal of the year and this one by Pablo Neruda, written over 50 years ago continues to surface. Both English translation and Spanish original.
Blessings to all--

KEEPING QUIET

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still.

For once on the face of the earth
let's not speak in any language,
let's stop for one second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines,
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victory with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), "Keeping Quiet"
Extravagaria (translated by Alastair Reid)
Jonathan Cape, London, 1972, pp.27-29
(original Estravagario, Editorial Losada, Buenos Aires, 1958)

A Callarse
Ahora contaremos doce
y nos quedamos todos quietos.
Por una vez sobre la tierra
no hablemos en ningun idioma,
por un segundo detengamonos,
no movamos tanto los brazos.

Seria un minuto fragante,
sin prisa, sin locomotoras,
todos estariamos juntos
en una inquietud instantanea.

Los pescadores del mar frio
no harian danio a las ballenas
y el trabajador de la sal
miraria sus manos rotas.

Los que preparan guerras verdes,
guerras de gas, guerras de fuego,
victorias sin sobrevivientes,
se pondrian un traje puro
y andarian con sus hermanos
por la sombra, sin hacer nada.

No se confunda lo que quiero
con la inaccion definitiva:
la vida es solo lo que se hace,
no quiero nada con la muerte.

Si no pudimos ser unanimes
moviendo tanto nuestras vidas,
tal vez no hacer nada una vez,
tal vez un gran silencio pueda
interrumpir esta tristeza,
este no entendernos jamas
y amenazarnos con la muerte,
tal vez la tierra nos ensenie
cuando todo parece muerto
y luego todo estaba vivo.

Ahora contare hasta doce
y tu te callas y me voy.

Extravagaria
Pablo Neruda
1958

Painting Red Stripe by Nancy Kiefer

Danceland Visible Cities

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 08:12:19 -0700

In response to poet Ryan Collin’s call for submissions to The Visible Cities Project, a mysterious poem appeared on my last blog entry comment site and it is worth a look. Danceland, a cosmic ballroom that could exist anywhere in the universe, was also a fixture in Davenport ,Iowa. The Visible Cities project is a poetic inquiry into the Quad Cities region....

The anonymous author provides only this bio:

“After suffering writer's block as an Aesthetic Monk on an isolated Mississippi River bluff, he traveled the world as an itinerant poet, trading light verse for food and shelter. Finally he settled on a path of Mid-west Gothic mysticism, and is now restoring old houses in his mind. He wanted to submit by writing verse on a Tibetan prayer flag and sending it on the wind but posted it here instead.”

Handy Stardust

Dan had a country western band,
I was a hired gun.
He had a gig three stories up,
A ballroom called Danceland.

Dan could not sing but liked to call
The hired guns his "boys"
We'd not rehearse his country noise
He'd shout the key. that's all.

Old men in tattered suits of plaid
And girdled glamor gals
Would shuffle round the floor like pals,
Lost friends they never had.

Big bands had graced this stage before
In glory days gone by
But now these floor boards creak and sigh
While dancers feet grow sore.

And Dan, his voice is out of key
And echoes in this room
An amplified, distorted boom
Is Danceland's eulogy.

Danceland

Mon, 5 Oct 2009 17:00:50 -0700

The King and Queen of Danceland
Oil on Paper
Nancy Kiefer

From Album The Tavern Closing Down

Temptations

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:59:47 -0700

Rock Island, Illinois, the factory town I grew up in, is sandwiched between Chicago and St. Louis. When I was growing up everything was about soul music in that town. Stax Records came through from Memphis and there was this Philly Sound and Aretha sang on Atlantic and of course Detroit was the city of destination for many wanna be singers. There were these homemade looking labels, too. We played them during lunch on portable record players.

A lot of blues around, too.
But back to soul.

Some of it was groovily sentimental yet it embodied this radiance of the time, a coming to power, the beauty of race, of black people. White girls like me didn’t get all the nuances...but the energy existed. It opened my heart and activism to the Civil Rights Movement. I am grateful I was in a town like that to absorb some of it.

A drawing from about 7th grade. Probably traced from one of my Temptation albums.

A Poem for the End of the Century

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 20:01:55 -0700

CZESLAW MILOSZ

When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,

I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.

What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.

Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation.

Why then innocence
On paradisal beaches,
An impeccable sky
Over the church of hygiene?
Is it because that
Was long ago?

To a saintly man
--So goes an Arab tale--
God said somewhat maliciously:
"Had I revealed to people
How great a sinner you are,
They could not praise you."

"And I," answered the pious one,
"Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you."

To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?

Don't think, don't remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.

Totally enigmatic.
Impossibly intricate.
Better to stop speech here.
This language is not for people.
Blessed be jubilation.
Vintages and harvests.
Even if not everyone
Is granted serenity.

Berkeley

Drawing by Nancy Kiefer
3” x 4”

A Triangle of Cake and Icy Metal

Wed, 2 Sep 2009 17:34:26 -0700

Writer Amy Halloran pays homage to AMERICAN ROMANCES: ESSAYS by Rebecca Brown
(City Lights, 2009)

Rebecca Brown’s newest book, a collection of essays titled
“American Romances” is a gem. A beautiful triangle of cake you can eat and keep. No, an energy bar for the mind studded with the world’s best figs, plump and seedy and full of sexy nutriment. In short, if the USDA assigned values to literature, reading these words would be very, very good
for you.

Read these pieces slowly. Savor them. The way the words and ideas are stacked is astonishing, making an absurd sense I didn’t think a book liked to make. The logic here is indirect. Connections span galaxies, as in the first essay, which links Brian Wilson and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Lo
and behold, the leaps work. They work very well.

Hawthorne dots the book, chunks of his writing jump-starting the essays, with nuggets of Gertrude Stein too. The latter is no surprise. Stein seems an apt literary ancestor for Brown, whose prose of shining plainspeak is a wonderful tumble downstream from Stein’s complications. But Hawthorne? The most I know of him lately is how he condemned the mass of women scribblers who threatened to overtake the profession in the mid-nineteenth century. This fact doesn’t seem to bother Brown, who spreads his words out in front of her own, revealing cloth of an ultra-high thread count, texts that shouldn’t be relegated to anything forgotten, or denied because of the anti-woman-writer sentiments Hawthorne harbored and set float on the sea of letters.

This generosity is, I think, a knee-jerk habit of Rebecca Brown’s. I know her and I am an enormous fan of her writing and her life. I am a fan of the way she shares her love of lit, and of writers, in any puddle she stirs. I was lucky enough to live nearly ten years in a city she made bright with booky moments – the Stein-a-thon, the Bronte-saurus, the fab
fundraisers for the now-gone Red and Black Books. I love her as a person and as a writer. Her fiction hurts, like icy metal on a warm tongue. If I could divide my feelings from reading, I think I would still be waxing fantastic about these essays. No one, nay no one, has ever invited me inside her scholarship in such a friendly way. She brings the academy down to earth. For which I feel an awesome thanks.

About Amy Halloran:

Amy Halloran lives in upstate NY with her husband and their two sons, all of whom have the charming characteristics of studious old men.
See more of her writing at www.amyhalloran.net