You vs. Yourself: Self-Portraits for Poets

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Ada Hoffman, Alicia Savage, art projects, art teachers, Arts& Academe, Baltimore Review, Cave Canem, Dos Gatos Press, dVerse Poet's pub, Easel and Me blog, Fishouse, Frances Borzello, Liminality, Lisa Russ Spaar, Mirror Mirror: Self Portraits by Women Artists, National Portrait Gallery, poetry lab, poetry prompt, Project Fairytale, Reginald Harris, Seeing Ourselves: Women's Self Portraits, self portrait art projects, Self Portrait Poetry anthology, Self Portrait Project in Haiti, selfie, Silver Birch Press, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Incredible Art blog, The Poetry Foundation, Tracy K Smith, vinyl window portraits, Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry, women artists, Women Artists at the Easel

Self Portrait, Undated by Vivian Maier

THE ART-SIDE

There has been a long tradition of self-portraiture in art, especially amongst women artists, who use it as a way of coming to a better understanding of oneself (as a temporary break into “other”), often adding symbolic imagery or stylized elements to their renderings.

For a thorough education in the subject, refer to Frances Borzello’s gorgeous book Seeing Ourselves: Women’s Self Portraits, which covers eight centuries of “lady” painters and photographers and also includes an interesting discussion on 20th century adaptations for performance and new media.

For more of a crash-course style intro, see the annotated galleries at Women Artists at the Easel& Mirror Mirror: Self Portraits by Women Artists.

There is also an eclectic mix of historic and contemporary offerings at the Easel and Me blog.

 

If you’d like to try your hand at an artsy but less traditional self-portrait, plow through some of the lessons at the Incredible Art blog. Created for art teachers, but fun for adult dabblers as well, choose from vinyl window portraits, bobblehead selfies, collage silhouettes, scratchboard etching, Matisse inspired cut paper portraits and more.

A few more stray links that I like: The Self Portrait Project in Haiti and Alicia Savage’s Project Fairytale Self-Portraits.

POETIC MUSINGS

Now on to the word-ly bit!  For the the low-down on poetic self portraiture,  check out Lisa Russ Spaar’s Arts& Academe post at the Chronicle of Higher Education–a quick intro to the genre with examples from a handful of emerging poets.

If you want the expanded version (yes! please), pick up a copy of Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry (the original) and turn to her lesson on pgs. 277-283.

Here you will find three multi-step exercises on tackling self-portrayal in poems, including the persona poem and the Self- Portrait as OBJECT format.

There are, of course, more example poems packed into the lesson and a handy list of contemporary poems for further reference. Dverse has a few of the suggestions listed here up on their site along with a more open prompt.

The Poetry Foundation also has a nice offering of old& new poems.

 

For those craving more, Silver Birch Press has a meaty anthology with poems from 67 scribes from all over the globe.

Other poems I’ve gleaned from the net (for your use as models):

Self Portrait as Bilbo Baggins from Liminality

Self Portrait as the Letter Y at Fishouse

Self Portrait as My Father’s Son at Baltimore Review

 

Have a favorite self-portrait poem, painting or photo?  Shoot us a link in the comments. We love hearing from you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POETRY LAB: Dark Subjects Made Bright

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Amelia's Magazine, Barbie, Colossal, Cristian Grossi, dark things made bright, Denise Duhamel, Diane Lockward, dVerse Poet's pub, Elsa Mora, fusion of opposites poem, Hello Kitty, Hollie Cook, Kittenchops, list poems, Look Listen Write, Michael Jackson, My Work, papercut art, Paw Powers Activate, poetry lab, poetry writing workshop, pop culture, Postman, Samuel Peralta, Sandra Faulkner, Slave to the Rhythm, The Crafty Poet, Things Every Woman Should Have In Her Closet, women's magazines, women's poetry, works in progress, Yulia Brodskaya

As my creative forces are converging on poetry once again,  I’m actually trying out a technique used in middle school workshops called “Look, Listen, Write“, but with a twist from Diane Lockward’s The Crafty Poet and a side of Samuel Peralta’s dverse Poet’s Pub blog.

In TCP, Diane presents an exercise called “The Fusion of Opposites Poem” (p. 163) that asks one to construct a scene based on lines built on opposites, such as quiet/noisy, hot/cold, bright/dark. She encourages working towards a prose poem, but I wanted to play with list poems as in Peralta’s forms exercise (linked above).

 

 

Also, I wanted to take something poppish (pop culture-based) and pair it with deeper issues facing women more like Duhamel’s Barbie poems or Sandra Faulkner’s Hello Kitty series.

Applying the middle school workshop model:

LOOKING

I pulled artwork from Colossal, Amelia’s Magazine and KittenChops that had women and this dark vs. bright theme…..

Cristian Grossi

Cristian Grossi

Cristian Grossi

Yulia Brodskaya

Yulia Brodskaya

Elsa Mora

Elsa Mora

Seattle Children’s Surgery mural by KittenChops

Paw Powers Activate–Kittenchops

Kittenchops

**Additional portfolio images here: Elsa, Yulia, Cristianand Zaara aka Kittenchops

and paired it with….

LISTENING

to various combinations of these (2) tracks,  which both layer pop music over deeper cultural issues facing women  [*funny how they give such different ‘feels’ to the art]

 

 

then after this immersion, which should take some quality percolating time…

WRITING

I borrowed headlines from some popular women’s magazines–doozies of higher-thinking like: “Perpetual Boyfriend Disappointments Diary” and “Things Every Woman Should Have in Her Closet”  and ran with it.

Here’s one of the Works-In-Progress from the second tag…..

 

THINGS EVERY WOMAN SHOULD HAVE IN HER CLOSET

 

an ill-fitting skeleton

shit-kicking boots stained with bad blood

a roadmap for sacrifices to whatever curtained god you are

currently worshipping

pinking shears for prettying-up broken hearts

nestled beside nuts& bolts & odd bits of timekeeping devices that

shook free of time

failures with exes napping with cats in neatly boxed rows (you know

for rehabilitation)

90’s haircuts sandwiched between diet books so you won’t go there

again (don’t   go   there  again)

dispatches to future selves that sting like papercuts  waiting

waiting with their metallic arms

pinned

—–C.A. LaRue

 

 

Feel like it’s at least a line short in there somewhere, but that’s why its called  W-I-P.   Please feel free to share what you come up with in the comments section or by emailing bonesparkblog@yahoo.com if you’d like to do your own guest post.

Peace out, poetry peeps!!!