Random, Abstract Poetry - 3/15/09

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's exhibition 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


The Intellectual Obscurity of Absolute Understanding
A transition to the invisible,
And the anxiety of convention.
I had to learn.

You mention civilization,
Being one-dimensional.
The negation.
An opposition to positivism.

The marginal was tangential.
So you would be aware of it.
Always in resistance.
Abandoning society.

Whether it was ten or ten thousand.
He thought deeply and completely lucid.
Very critical of the French.
A necessary block,
To understanding a complicated language.

To think about theory,
All complexities can be understood.

Do you think that way?
It's possible.

The dark side was very difficult.
I was influenced by the thinker.
The difference between negative and positive.
Being oneself and so on.

I'm also thinking.
In other words, the knowledge of knowledge,
Can teach us knowledge.

Writing In Fragment Down The Page

Take a piece of paper.

And follow it.

What have you written?

Searching for an entry.

The sound of birds.

So much talking.

Stories are the collection of stories,

With a beginning, middle and end.
He awoke with a mind,
From the left side of right.

The two-headed god?

Ideas ask questions.

It's possible, but none the less.

That's not weird, it's just interesting.

An observer of his own life.

Leading to the climactic line.

It is finished, isn't it?
Yes.