VANITAS : a journal of poetry, writings by artists, criticism, and essays. During its decade of intervention in the public realm, VANITAS came out quasi-annually, serving as a forum for international voices with an emphasis on coming to grips with current world situations. Each issue contained writings by artists whose primary modes were non-literary and featured the work of a visual artist. [www.vanitasmagazine.net]
![[drogba_king.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwY-uGdsiFuZX81g1XEz_2Mj4cSIfNsNJU4E94VxkXZvRmxLtRhtDtyStfsPJvdRTm8ppknlowmo3l-Y2fn74l65FnnREdisxZGvqUM2wA6OijeSKixGD2nGfxVI0zcxqH6Jq4h936jCk/s1600/drogba_king.jpg)
Echoes rebound in the ancient ball court
In the arena along the storied river
The hangdog crowd disperses having seen
Anger erupt on the ancient ball court
The last fragmenting of a human dream
A final F-bomb dropped on a machine
Didier Drogba/Ledley King: Tom Clark, 2008
Great ballcourt, Chichen Itza: photo by Laura Scudder, 2005For the seventh and final issue of VANITAS, we examine the idea of The Self. The work featured in issue 7 tests just how far the self can be stretched, partially as an exercise in self-expression, partially in search of what used to be called experience. Self, not so much in personae as in faces, in the sense the Mods used the term — referring to someone with style, perhaps within a culture of style, but an individual expression of that culture, or perhaps someone who can seemingly invent her own style, just standing there.
This issue features new work by Bruce Andrews, Mary Jo Bang, Anselm Berrigan, Steve Dickison, Danielle Dutton, Tonya Foster, John Godfrey, Robert Hunter, Paolo Javier, Ann Lauterbach, Kimberly Lyons, Dan Machlin, Gerard Malanga, Judith Malina, Filip Marinovich, Harry Matthews, Michael McClure, Anna Moschovakis, Stephen Motika, Jennifer Moxley, Michael Palmer, Aram Saroyan, Lewis Warsh, and many more. Featuring artwork by Diana Michener, Carol Szymanski, Gerard Malanga, Rudy Burckhardt, and Vivien Bittencourt.
2 comments:
Tom, thanks for this (and the painting)....
And thank you, Dale. It's only a detail from the painting in fact. The other man in it is Michael Essien, who would been Chelsea's hero on the day. Had not fate and Andres Iniesta intervened, leaving Didier Drogba to drop an F-bomb on a machine (the camera).
BTW Jack Kimball chipped in privately with a useful bit of hypertext, or shall we simply call it improvement:
"Thinking about Manny this morning, I wanted to read your second line as 'the steroid river'. Close, so close."
Curious how poems change day by day, often for the better.
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