Thursday, May 03, 2007
Recommended Reading
Flying in Water -- Poems by Barbara Tomash
Barbara Tomash's art is based in a myriad of icons and iconoclasts, the pieces of her poetry seem a delicate Williams, or an East Coast American H.D. Those line structures, that careful attention to image and scene, take on new life within Tomash's structure -- the prose poem. She takes the tools that most of us use to measure breath, and, instead builds and atmosphere.
Tomash juxtaposes image and statement to create metaphor, sans the heavy handed baggage which so often accompanies it. Even within the form of prose poem, she shows remarkable restraint in language and meter -- the prose poem becomes unexposed paper, and her film has been shot at f22. Everything is in focus, and everything in the frame is necessary. The eye cannot see the entirety of a landscape on its own, and Tomash reminds us of that.
The poems freely move from one into the next, the beauty of us piece rising up as a wave and lowering us into the first movements of the next. The story is the entirety of a photograph, but also within Flying in Water is a gallery of emotion and experience. Tomash touches on all our senses: we hear piano music played by her son, smell bread and straw, feel the veins in our arms and suffer the vertigo of waking dreams.
Flying in Water becomes a kitchen floor covered in dropped moments, becomes a life viewed from outside of life, at f22, when everything is clear and connected (and not in so off New Age way.) The language is wonderfully original and unwavering in its poise and poignancy. Tomash balances the spreading of ashes and the spreading of jam, promises both failed and fulfilled, motherhood and sexuality, the violence in beauty and vice versa; in essence, life. Tomash dances us through all of it.
Barbara Tomash's art is based in a myriad of icons and iconoclasts, the pieces of her poetry seem a delicate Williams, or an East Coast American H.D. Those line structures, that careful attention to image and scene, take on new life within Tomash's structure -- the prose poem. She takes the tools that most of us use to measure breath, and, instead builds and atmosphere.
Tomash juxtaposes image and statement to create metaphor, sans the heavy handed baggage which so often accompanies it. Even within the form of prose poem, she shows remarkable restraint in language and meter -- the prose poem becomes unexposed paper, and her film has been shot at f22. Everything is in focus, and everything in the frame is necessary. The eye cannot see the entirety of a landscape on its own, and Tomash reminds us of that.
The poems freely move from one into the next, the beauty of us piece rising up as a wave and lowering us into the first movements of the next. The story is the entirety of a photograph, but also within Flying in Water is a gallery of emotion and experience. Tomash touches on all our senses: we hear piano music played by her son, smell bread and straw, feel the veins in our arms and suffer the vertigo of waking dreams.
Flying in Water becomes a kitchen floor covered in dropped moments, becomes a life viewed from outside of life, at f22, when everything is clear and connected (and not in so off New Age way.) The language is wonderfully original and unwavering in its poise and poignancy. Tomash balances the spreading of ashes and the spreading of jam, promises both failed and fulfilled, motherhood and sexuality, the violence in beauty and vice versa; in essence, life. Tomash dances us through all of it.
Labels: Recommended Reading
# posted by Patrick : 9:58 PM
