Lino Tagliapietra, Avventurine Installation (2017)
Overview
During our recent Poetry of Glass workshop, poet and Auburn professor Janelle Green introduced teens to ekphrasis writing inspired by the exhibition, Lino Tagliapietra: Master of Beauty. She prompted the teens to find three pieces in the exhibition, look at them and think about the musicality, the colors, and the movement in them. Once they did that, the teens were tasked with writing poems inspired by each piece but in different styles. They could rhyme or not. The poems could be long or short. Each different to challenge the teens and their writing.
Places
Norah Willis, age 17
There’s people
There’s places
There’s towns
There’s faces
We move, we live, we breathe
We are in a way, an epiphany
Lines and borders dived our human lands
Though we are all not that different in the times of sands
We are all born
We all die
We have our lows
And we have our highs
We are all created the same,
Though we come in different shapes and sizes
In a lot of ways we are like a vase
One with many shapes
Love your quirks
Love other’s changes
Love your skin
Love other’s fazes
Accept change
Though it’s hard
But not accepting it
Will leave us scars
Be the clay
Change as your shaped
Love your crazy
And love those who are sane
Untitled
Elizabeth Efferson, age 17
Glass leaves, like water droplets.
Shattering when they meet the ground.
Father
Vivian Cunningham, age 18
A S and a C
The initials of a father
The initials of my father
The initials of someone strong
Someone loving
Kind
Cheerful
There
A S and a C
The initials of my father.
Crisp
Tamara Phillips, age 16
Lapis gemstones, bright and blue
Always remind me of you
Warm embraces, or pleasant surprises
You’re the sunsets to my sunrises
Rigid and cold,
Many fear you
But to me, your heart is clear to see through
Yes, you’ve caused plenty of trouble
And you’re not easy to get along with
Yet there’s not a way to find another
That could steal your show
And you should know,
That just like spring,
You’re quite a great thing
One of my favorite seasons of all
Just after fall
The Tempest
Jordan Scott, age 17
And I was a child again, running by the sea,
I was laughing loudly, with my mother chasing me.
I can almost smell the air.
I can almost touch the sand.
I can almost feel my sister
As she took my hand.
Then I saw the storm,
I saw my calm destroyed
The waves crashed towards me violently
Then I felt a void.
I remember being scared at the suddenness of the storm.
It is a storm in a child’s eyes.
And all of the fears they form.
Tower
Kamaryn Ellison, age 17
A spiraling tower.
Is in the distance.
Stretching toward the sky.
It disappears into the clouds.
The heavens open and shower.
The traveler puts up resistance.
Carried on the wind is a yell of “Why.”
The trees everywhere are like a crowd.
In a cave the traveler cowers.
Still the tower is in an upright stance.
The traveler travels and at night arrives.
Having found true shelter the traveler is proud.
Related Exhibition
Lino Tagliapietra
November 10, 2018 through January 20, 2019
