For a while I wrote about nothing but birds - they dominated what poems or rhymes I wrote, and I even thought of an idea for my second novel, which will be called, suitably, The Aviary, about a girl who loses her twin sister, only to believe her twin was turned into a bird to save herself from plunging from a cliff-top. And whenever I find work by artists that are also preoccupied with birds, I remember them and go back to their images again and again. One such artist is Kate MacDowell, who sculpts with porcelain. She creates many pieces that I love, not just birds, but all focus on nature and the impact of the environment on smaller animals. They also relate the fragility of human being's relationship with these creatures, which I find incredibly moving. Her ideas are so dark and sinister, though truthful, yet her pieces are made with fine porcelain of a bright white that lets in such light that appears ghostly and phosphorescent.
The Blackbird (written last summer)
The people won't talk to a bird,
they think it has not any word
so what's the point in being heard?
I couldn't help but clip its wings,
the blackbird, for the song it sings.
It brings to mind unnatural things.
I took the breath of this bird in
and put the body in the bin.
To me, it does not feel a sin.
But what's the point in spoken word
when all I say is just misheard?
I'd rather turn into a bird
and fly forever on the wing,
and to do fuck-all else but sing.
And conjure some unnatural thing.
find out more about Kate MacDowell here: http://www.katemacdowell.com/
- N x x x
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