Poem of the Week: 10.26.23
"SUBWAY Ekphrasis"
SUBWAY EKPHRASIS
after Bruce Davidson
by Ricky Novaes de Oliveira
I spent a year traveling the system photographing, rumbling sometimes celebrating a visceral exhibition taken during a seeking to uncover subway color. In today’s loneliness, I approach trains as ways of subsisting intimate details passengers and passing words, lines, bound and binding. Ads next to signs next to maps urge me toward a new red crisis riding sin uptown local, grand central true emergency easy please hands kept bare, anyone off the door, anybody could be in the subway.
Not the sandwich but the commute.
Ekphrasis is making art by observing art. I don’t think “SUBWAY Ekphrasis” is articulated enough to be considered art yet—hope you’re not getting bored of my workinprogress poems yet. A majority of the words in this poem are words that were present in the exhibit, from the description painted on the wall beginning the exhibit to the fragments of language found within the photographs themselves (mostly graffiti tag). That’s why the poem is a little clunky or awkward. I tried to make them a part of the same journey, but it loses focus in the abstract. Much like a bumpy, crowded, and quick ride on the subway.
I thought my poetry would magically improve the moment I assumed the life of an MFA student, but it turns out to not be so instantaneous. I spend more time reading and working than writing in a degree called Writing with a capital ‘w.’ I feel like I know even less about writing than I did before. Go figure. Please bare with me.
Or don’t. Poetry is here whenever you want it, and here regardless of if you care. Unlike the subway. Don’t miss it!
Rumblingly, Ricky
"Writing with a capital w" and knowing even less (about writing and possibly more) than before -- bravo! Sounds like a good, if prickly, place to be. Love the transparency and working forward. Thanks for sharing.