Random, Abstract Poetry - 1/11/09

Background: I take the Brooklyn Rail newspaper and underline words and phases in the articles that catch my attention. Then circle a word or phrase for the title. It's more of a subtractive process, taking a page of words and editing down to a poem or maybe several. It's kind of backwards from the traditional process of adding words to a blank page, but it works for me. The pieces of newspaper with these random abstract poems get used as collage material in my artwork. I create the artwork. My darker, semi-schizophrenic alter ego creates the poetry.

The concept of taking something that already exists and turning it into something new was inspired by a Richard Prince exhibition I visited at the Guggenheim - 2008. His re-photography, nurse paintings, and deKooning woman, collage paintings were my favorites.

Examples: You can see actual articles from the Brooklyn Rail with the poetry on my website at - www.ErikVP.com/poetry




In A New Land
Our dialog about life and myth.
The intimate experience with expectations.
Can you talk about that?

It was two years ago.
Seems like yesterday.

I got on the wrong plane.
Landed in Africa.
Then, got run over by a car.
Very naive.

I had this idea about living.
Living, I thought.
A really interesting phenomenon.

All these people living,
All over.
From different worlds.
The mixture is most wonderful.

It takes time to realize.
I was living.
It's all beautiful.


It's About Dirt
Coming to a new place.
Often in a dream.
I realized only recently.
Connected personally from before.

Seeking, and could not find it.
Because, they didn't want to.

That sense of alienation.
Isolation.
A thought.
What had happened?

People without their feet.
Wars fought over land.

It's religion,
Or it's oil.
If you really look,
At what defines.



Notions Of The Cosmos
Obsessed with the stones.
The way they look.
Not in any way.
I feel a tremendous attraction.

They tie themselves into a puzzle.
A structure to reveal.
Like reading patterns.
Kind of abstract.

It struck me,
Those stones.
The planets?

We see these ancient forms.
The stones might hypothesize.
Which neither you nor I,
Care for.

I think some things are happening.
This kind of deformation.
Other levels of reality.