Vision, Voice, & Practice: Cross-Genre Project #1, Spring 2019

In this project, students had an hour to fabricate (and document) works that referenced (or responded to), in some way, the poetry of Marianne Moore and the boxes of Joseph Cornell. The aim was for artists to try to respond to the writer (Moore) and writers to respond to respond to the artists (Cornell). In some cases, students responded to particular pieces by the Cornell or Moore. In some cases, students incorporated both Cornell's and Moore's work in their pieces.

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For Juan

Who said that parrots were pretenders
or that this world smiled when he did?

You...
custard-lipped Bramante,
perched on your notions of ‘would’,
when will you learn
that digging your maltodextrined talons into
the of mutability of man
will only give rise to a cake of stares?

Who cares,
that you of all people
help the apprentice see potential in parchment
and that by brandishing your beak on what’s finished
you crack the case of constriction?

I do.
That’s who.

- Amy Struthers, in response to Cornell’s A Parrot for Juan Gris

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- David Giles

- Fae Naughton

How to Make A Home in the Wilderness
 
In the hollow nest 
We’re still learning 
How to make a home
In the wilderness—
Here, it’s still anyone’s guess.

Do I take cues from the ocean, 
Whose open and fluid grasp
Lets far too many enter—
Come and go as they please; 
Slip through its grasp.

Or the books who teach 
That every word, every comma, every faded ink-spot, 
Every object has meaning 
Beyond my reach?

Do I embrace the entrapment? 
Take comfort in the box that stifles 
But keeps secure—
These ponderings aren’t trifles, But act as a lure.

How to make a home in the wilderness:

Strike a match, 
Light the hearth, 
Take your comforts where they are 
The wilderness is out there, 
But the fire keeps it far.

- Megan Bass, box and poem made in response to Cornell's Paul and Virginia

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Bleeding Rainbows

You tell me I don’t bleed—not when you hit me.
You tell me I don’t bruise either, because, apparently
I don’t have that “red stuff” deep down in my veins.
I am no longer human to you, but I’m very human to me.
I’m human in my tears, you know, those things
That you screamed at, falling off my face—
That was my humanity.
Clear, wet humanity.
And maybe that scared you,
Maybe that’s why you don’t see them anymore.
Clear, the color of purity, the color of nothing,
Nothing more than salt and water circling together.
But then, yesterday, when I tried holding back that salty sin,
I saw the sun glint off the corner of it,
Watched the rainbow slide and glide down my cheek
Till it ran off the edge of my boney chin.
It hit me,
I don’t bleed red, I bleed rainbows,
Clear, pure rainbows that no one else has ever been angry at.
How can you be mad at something so beautiful?

- Olivia Blair

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- Caylie Smith

- Kyol Shorack

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My Moon
No matter where I am, there you are with me.
The world seems so dark without you,
so there you stand to guide my heavy heart.
Through planets, universes, and galaxies,
you stay constant.
Oh so wonderful, you bring me peace.
I want the sun to remain asleep
because I want to dance with you forever
and love you with the stars.

I want to see what you see.
I want to be where you are.
I want to grow with you.

My moon, please promise me one thing:
Stay with me forever.
Through the oceans crashing against my walls,
Through fire burning in my lungs,
Through the absence of life,
remain with me.
I will love you more than the stars who dance at your feet,
more than the wishes people make to you.
Hold me under the light
and dance with me until the end.

- Irene Paek, in response to Cornell's Untitled (Celestial Navigation)

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- Marijane Fasana

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The Moon to Your Earth
I am the moon to your Earth;
 not a sun or the bright stars. 
When I collide with your Sun,
 it ends with an eclipse, 
where I am still overcome 
by the Suns’ bright flares.

I am the moon to your Earth: 
I am only a black pinhole 
in the glowing canvas. 
Don’t stare at me when I 
block your favorite star; 
save yourself from sightless.

I am far away from you, Earth. 
Yet, we see each other 
from where we stand in this
 universe; until the end, 
one thing remains constant: 
I am the moon to your Earth.

- Andres Ramirez

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- Brendon Sylvester

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I Wish to Fall

through
The ground
When I’m walking.
One step –
My feet, ankles, knees, hips, stomach, shoulders, neck and head
Vanish
Loyally following
One after the other
Through the ground.

I tumble through a
Damp dark sky
Beneath my
Old floor –
Grab a tuft of cloud
On my way down –
Unraveling it,
Unraveling it
As I fall,
As I fall
Until
It stiffens to wire
And I – stuck hanging
Like tacky bait
Glued onto Van Gogh’s canopy –
Take the starlight
As my own.

People below
I fool.
Millions of miles
Below.
Necks craning upward,
Mouths open wide.
They wish to fall through
The ground, too
And join my
Constellation of
Wire and scales.

- Hannah Strandberg, in response to Cornell's Verso of Cassiopeia 1
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- Micah Hickerson

- Erica Mahnke

- Claire Jacobson, in response to Moore's "The Steeple-Jack"

- Rachel Ji, in response to Moore's "What Are Years?"

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To Shoot, a Mystery
Red, blue, yellow hues
feathers and splatters
Shattered. Imperfection at the center.
Glass splits, carving trenches
through pristine perfection.

Down in the trenches, boys become
men in an instant, their eyes trailing
the blood red stain of life leaving the body.

A paint stain. Mommy will wash it out with bleach
and we will shoot again.
Little boys squawking, flapping parrot wings
to get away, never leaving the ground.
Paint for ammunition, numbered targets
and hideouts.
A field, splotched in primary colors.

- Bethany Foster, in response to Cornell's Habitat Group for a Shooting Gallery

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