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Graphite. (Original writing);
Abstract
These poems represent seven years of work, beginning in 1986 at the University of Maryland, where Stanley Plumly and Michael Collier helped and encouraged me. Also, my style's been influenced by the work of sculptor Duane Hanson, whose Verist or Super Real bronzes of working class people in ordinary settings--at work, shopping, eating, and the like--were first created in the 1970s. I remember seeing his bronze of an overweight tourist at the Oberlin College Museum and feeling, at first, amazement at the technical skill of making bronze seem almost human, and then compassion, empathy, for our condition: the tourist reminded me of my own relatives and friends, the ones who try very hard to earn a living and raise families, who seem to be so caught up in this literal struggle that the luxury of time and circumstance to create a life of the mind, an aesthetic of living, becomes impossible. The language, like the people, is simple, direct--much more akin to William Carlos Williams than Wallace Stevens. These poems are a way for me to discover the extraordinary in the everyday, and to remind myself, over and over, to take nothing for granted.
Subject Area
American literature
Recommended Citation
Skeen, Timothy Douglas, "Graphite. (Original writing);" (1993). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI9322816.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI9322816