Random, Abstract Poetry - 2/18/09

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


Just There
You know, I began going nowhere.
I remember that.
Like Van Gogh's drawings.

The drawings were very important.
Even now, they are lucid.

Color is something really open.
It was art with people,
who couldn't talk.

If you went over there,
they'd stop and not talk.
I didn't fit in.

You belonged to the color.
But I didn't really feel comfortable.
That was true.

The color didn't have structure.
Struggling and struggling.
Just trying to draw.
Too many choices.
You can't give people too many choices.

Going to Egypt?
I should go to Egypt.
The pyramids.
I could stack together,
and not move the air.

I realized.
It just came to me.
The last key to the puzzle.

You got to struggle to figure out color.
I think that's about right.


I Didn't Know People
Shakespeare hardly had any friends.
But his ghost was present,
as though he'd never left.

An education in literature imagined.
So innovative and experimental.

A very unorthodox critic, traumatized.
Because I did not have the tools to write.
Thinking creatively in whatever.
Probably philosophy.



None Of This Was Ever Really Spoken
You were born early.
I wonder how that influenced you?

It was very intense.
They couldn't figure me out.
I read everything.

The war had a lot of resonance.
The 21st century complexity,
and so on.
The complexity of identity.

I found out later,
I wore rosary beads.

Much later in life,
I invented the process,
of organizing beloved figures.

I got very nervous.
They would vibrate any time the train went by.