The Night Cafe, by Van Gogh. 1888. Yale University Art Gallery
In Medias Res
There is a flurry of noise
Of images and batterings
As if I weather more than storms
More than wild winds
The flurry surrounds and confuses
Distorts and narrows
The field my focus
My open-ended vision
I'm too much a part of the world
– right now
Too much a swamped victim
Of my own acquiescence
Flattened like pictures
Floating down
pre-Raphaelite
streams
-- by Douglas Pinson
Juxtaposition with image from pictorial arts and then link with Anglo-Saxon poetic form and rhythm allows for delightful reader-response wanderings for a reader who, like myself, has read Anglo-Saxon poems like the relevant poems titled “The Seafarer” and “The Wanderer.” Alternatively, consult Ezra Pound on same to explore further how the form Mr. Pinson chooses resonates. Pound’s contributions to poetry play against pre-Raphaelite schemes but in so doing reflect and acknowledge them. In any event, there is chronological succession from the world of Van Gogh to the world of Pound, while Pound himself is propelled by the synchronous, encyclopaedic grasp of poetry, so that he “re”-makes it new, and so does Mr. Pinson you might say.
Robert. Thanks. Thought-provoking commentary.
Wasn’t thinking about it consciously, but now that you mention it, Pound’s faces at the Metro (among other poems) has echoes here …
Again, appreciate your comments.