The Arts Society of Kingston organized Poetic License, in collaboration with The Poetry Barn from August 7th through August 29th, 2021. Poetry Barn selected 35 poems for ASK’s artists to select from and use as inspiration to produce a work of art in any medium. I chose Dr. Mary Newell's poem, Bank Tangle.
Bank Tangle
A train stop anomaly: twig nest tucked into branch tangle: river-scan, plummet, breed -
Across the Hudson, homes
tucked in to bank slope:
survey, embark, dwell -
settled in for the duration.
Nineteen miles downstream,
smoke rises from Indian Point.
As the river ambles north,
histories wheeze in eddies,
palimpset laden with fuse.
--Mary Newell
note
Charles Darwin used the phrase "tangled bank" to refer to the intermixture of life forms "dependent upon each other in so complex a manner" (On the Origin of Species).
Listen to the poets reading their poems and see the inspired artworks here (Mary Newell's recording and my Stations of the Hudson prints are on the bottom of the linked page.)
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