Leaving the Tate Poem by Fleur Adcock
Leaving the Tate
Coming out with your clutch of postcards
in a Tate gallery bag and another clutch
of images packed into your head you pause
on the steps to look across the river
and there's a new one: light bright buildings,
a streak of brown water, and such a sky
you wonder who painted it - Constable? No:
too brilliant. Crome? No: too ecstatic -
a madly pure Pre-Raphaelite sky,
perhaps, sheer blue apart from the white plumes
rushing up it (today, that is,
April. Another day would be different
but it wouldn't matter. All skies work.)
Cut to the lower right for a detail:
seagulls pecking on mud, below
two office blocks and a Georgian terrace.
Now swing to the left, and take in plane-trees
bobbled with seeds, and that brick building,
and a red bus...Cut it off just there,
by the lamp-post. Leave the scaffolding in.
That's your next one. Curious how
these outdoor pictures didn't exist
before you'd looked at the indoor pictures,
the ones on the walls. But here they are now,
marching out of their panorama
and queuing up for the viewfinder
your eye's become. You can isolate them
by holding your optic muscles still.
You can zoom in on figure studies
(that boy with the rucksack), or still lives,
abstracts, townscapes. No one made them.
The light painted them. You're in charge
of the hanging committee. Put what space
you like around the ones you fix on,
and gloat. Art multiplies itself.
Art's whatever you choose to frame.
you have presented your passions nicely, thanks for sharing.
composing your own landscapes. Exact observations create d by yourself. Art begins with seeing, then choosing. Great poem Tom Billsboriough
5 Stars Full for this lovely poem, Congratulations being chosen as The Modern Poem Of The Day.
2) Formerly, her early work was influenced by her training as a classicist but her more recent work is looser in structure and more concerned with the world of the unconscious mind.Very interesting to know these about the great poetess.
1) Adcock's poetry is typically concerned with themes of place, human relationships and everyday activities, but frequently with a dark twist given to the mundane events she writes about.
Art multiplies itself. Art's whatever you choose to frame.............how truest! Congratulations on being chosen for so many times last 8 June and today. The 8 June 2019. A very keen observation on any landscape the poetess saw. Another museum? Then we can read another Masterpiece here. Any museum will do, the poetess does it! Her observational ability is true brilliant, that's why the poem reads like a Masterpiece.
Now swing to the left, and take in plane-trees bobbled with seeds, and that brick building, and a red bus...Cut it off just there, by the lamp-post. Leave the scaffolding in a very fine poem. tony
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/25/2024 11:56:11 AM # 1.0.0.1119
Art multilplies itself! Thanks for sharing this poem with us.