Poetry and Mark Rothko

Poet and painter Caley O'Dwyer, who once visited VVP to share some of his work with our students, has an ekphrastic poem up at the appropriately titled The Ekphrastic Review. The poem, entitled "Three Blacks in Dark Blue," is based on Mark Rothko's painting Untitled (Three Blacks in Dark Blue). The poem, a speculative meditation on what death might mean, contains this striking passage:

"What if even now I'm here and there / at once: in my body on this Earth / but also sailing dark into dark, / black into shimmering bands of night."

Read the rest of the poem and see an image of the painting here.