Somewhere in the heaven
Of lost futures
The lives we might have led
Have found their own fulfillment.
---D. Mahon
.
.
Black bird without voice
No room for you in these skies
Stone, falling, falling down
Man, no-one hears your cries.
Stone, weight of the world
Here at the bottom of the blue sea
With time for dark revenge
I'll sing your blues and think of thee
Black bird, black bird, you and me
All alone, but now so free.
---b
4 comments:
Don't you find Ellen Gallagher's work very, very disturbing? I do. Have you seen an exhibition of it?
no, haven't seen any of her work C. I think she's 'on' at Liverpool nowadays.
Why do you find the work "very disturbing"? I'm intrigued.
Well,I haven't actually seen any of her work for real so it's hard to get the full effect of what are obviously very dense and complex creations. (In some of her work she uses collage.) This particular work, Bird in Hand, according to one review I read, 'presents a hybrid character who has adopted the dress of his white owners, yet still seems to be held fast by his cultural roots.' Don't you think the image has a slightly sinister and ghostly look, almost threatening? And it also contains a haunting echo of Billie Holliday's 'Strange Fruit.'The figure could almost be hanging from a tree. It all feels ominous to me.
One of Gallagher's influences, apparently, is Gertrude Stein! I'm not sure how that fits in, except to guess that it relates to the Stein collage-style of writing.
I'd really, really like to see this work and as it's on in Liverpool until end of August it may be possible. I might even be able to inveigle my art-historian daughter to join me!
"O Black and Unknown Bards"
O black and unknown bards of long ago,
How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
How, in your darkness, did you come to know
The power and beauty of the minstrels' lyre?
Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes?
Who first from out the still watch, lone and long,
Feeling the ancient faith of prophets rise
Within his dark-kept soul, burst into song?
I found this 1917 poem by James Weldon Johnson, on one of the reviews of Gallagher's work.
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