Sunday, October 10, 2004

I'm thinking that these poems don't need the pictures. not that the pictures interfere. I might recommend that the reader forestall hitting the pic link till having read the poem, then refer to the painting in question. because I don't think the poems are captions (merely). someone I think interviewed in Jacket (Simon Perchik?) described his method of writing. he used the pictures in Family of Man. he would rework each poem so that reference to the picture he used was eliminated. words placed, then, in a different space. Mark's poems are more of a direct response to Magritte's work, but they live outside that direction as well. see, I didn't notice the links at 1st, thinking the underlines just indicated titles. duh. readers as well as writers contend with context all the time. sometimes our urge for context (I'm not directing this comment at Mark but at myself) leaves us a little grasping.

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