Le Merle Noir

In ‘Bird by Bird’, Anne Lamott mentions someone called Wallace Stevens.  I had to Google in order to get the joke.  He was a poet who worked in insurance. (That wasn’t the joke.)  Honestly, these days, poetry pisses me off.  I mean no disrespect.  However, one of Wallace Stevens’ poems captivated me with the vivid imagery it evoked.  The poem is ‘Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird’.  I like this poem very much and was hardly pissed off at all on reading it.

It’s in thirteen stanzas, some only couplets.  Check me with my poetrabulary. (In many cultures, making up words is a sign of a poetic soul*.)

Anyway, these striking images got me all enthused for an art project; perhaps lino prints, perhaps glass painting, perhaps a series, one artefact for each stanza. It’s going to be fabulous. 

First comes my favourite part – the sketchbook.  Sketchbooks aren’t actually for sketching in.  This suits me fine as I hate drawing.  No, sketchbooks are doorways, through which one must belly dance, jingling wildly, unafraid to make a mark, a mess or a mistake.  Paint, collage, stipple if you must, brainstorm words that you’ll later wonder what on earth you meant.  IMHO, they are the best part of the creative process. 

Many professional creatives, including writers, say it’s all about the creative process, not the end result.  That’s because they have sold stuff and have the validation.  It seems to me the deep joy of making art is to find your validation elsewhere and just go mad in a sketchbook.    

Research so far: Latin name for Blackbird is Turdus.   Unfortunate.  Turdus Merula in fact.  Family Turdidae (Thrushes).  Songs; Beatles, Kate Bush, Folk Music. Poems. Sixpences.

In Gaelic; Druid Dhubh; black druid.

‘Adar Rhiannon’; the three blackbirds of Rhiannon.

It’s a sign.

*Disclaimer: This may or may not be true.

P.S. In many cultures, acronyms are not considered to be a sneaky way to cheat on word counts. (Disclaimer above refers)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45236/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-a-blackbird