TEACHING POETRY & AMERICAN ART

  • Introduction
    • Why Poetry and American Art?
    • Strategies
    • Disclaimer
    • About Me
  • Romanticism
    • Intro to American Romanticism (1820-1900)
    • John James Audubon
    • Thomas Cole
    • Asher Durand
    • Daniel Chester French
    • Winslow Homer
    • Albert Pinkham Ryder
    • Augustus Saint-Gaudens
    • "Illuminated Gems of Sacred Poetry"
    • "Indian Summer: Autumn Poems and Sketches"
  • Realism / Social Realism
    • Realism >
      • Intro to Realism (1900-1920)
      • George Bellows
      • Edwin Dawes
      • Thomas Eakins
      • Edward Hopper
      • Thomas Hovenden
      • John Sloan
    • Social Realism >
      • Intro to Social Realism (1920-1940)
      • Walker Evans
      • Dorothea Lange
      • Ben Shahn
  • Regionalism
    • Intro to Regionalism (1920-1940)
    • Thomas Hart Benton
    • Maynard Dixon
    • Grant Wood
  • Modernism
    • Intro to Modernism (1910-1940)
    • Stuart Davis
    • Charles Demuth
    • Marsden Hartley
    • Georgia O'Keeffe
  • Harlem Renaissance
    • Intro to Harlem Renaissance (1920-1940)
    • Aaron Douglas
    • Meta Warrick Fuller
    • Jacob Lawrence
    • Faith Ringgold
    • Carl Van Vechten
    • Hale Woodruff
  • Abstract Expressionism
    • Intro to Abstract Expressionism / New York School (1940-1960)
    • Morris Graves
    • Red Grooms
    • Philip Guston
    • Grace Hartigan
    • Kenneth Patchen
    • Dorothea Tanning
    • Walasse Ting
    • Cy Twombly
  • Postmodern/Contemporary
    • Intro to Postmodern / Contemporary Art (1950-present)
    • Visual Poetry
    • Louise Bourgeois
    • Joseph Goldyne
    • Elizabeth Murray
    • Jeff Schlanger
    • Kiki Smith
    • Jaune Q. Smith
  • More Resources
  • Introduction
    • Why Poetry and American Art?
    • Strategies
    • Disclaimer
    • About Me
  • Romanticism
    • Intro to American Romanticism (1820-1900)
    • John James Audubon
    • Thomas Cole
    • Asher Durand
    • Daniel Chester French
    • Winslow Homer
    • Albert Pinkham Ryder
    • Augustus Saint-Gaudens
    • "Illuminated Gems of Sacred Poetry"
    • "Indian Summer: Autumn Poems and Sketches"
  • Realism / Social Realism
    • Realism >
      • Intro to Realism (1900-1920)
      • George Bellows
      • Edwin Dawes
      • Thomas Eakins
      • Edward Hopper
      • Thomas Hovenden
      • John Sloan
    • Social Realism >
      • Intro to Social Realism (1920-1940)
      • Walker Evans
      • Dorothea Lange
      • Ben Shahn
  • Regionalism
    • Intro to Regionalism (1920-1940)
    • Thomas Hart Benton
    • Maynard Dixon
    • Grant Wood
  • Modernism
    • Intro to Modernism (1910-1940)
    • Stuart Davis
    • Charles Demuth
    • Marsden Hartley
    • Georgia O'Keeffe
  • Harlem Renaissance
    • Intro to Harlem Renaissance (1920-1940)
    • Aaron Douglas
    • Meta Warrick Fuller
    • Jacob Lawrence
    • Faith Ringgold
    • Carl Van Vechten
    • Hale Woodruff
  • Abstract Expressionism
    • Intro to Abstract Expressionism / New York School (1940-1960)
    • Morris Graves
    • Red Grooms
    • Philip Guston
    • Grace Hartigan
    • Kenneth Patchen
    • Dorothea Tanning
    • Walasse Ting
    • Cy Twombly
  • Postmodern/Contemporary
    • Intro to Postmodern / Contemporary Art (1950-present)
    • Visual Poetry
    • Louise Bourgeois
    • Joseph Goldyne
    • Elizabeth Murray
    • Jeff Schlanger
    • Kiki Smith
    • Jaune Q. Smith
  • More Resources
Entering Genesee Gorge
(by Anthony Piccione) 
​
The tangling weave of leaf and branch releases.
We awake suddenly and at last upon a great
bristling stillness, an urge to kneel and rise
at once, as inside the chest of a cathedral.

Through the muscular rock and starkly
forested upheave a river goes on arriving.
Now the soundless clench over ears
gives way to the roaring spill of waterfall.

The sky is also new, or it was always here,
strangely alive. A massive billowing cloudbank
weighs down upon all the surrounds until witness
itself enters the dark, towering, luminous presence. 

Oddly heroic, then, is the squat waterwheel shack
hunched alone in its task to part the tumbling rush
and to creak on in its cogs to the grinding of bread.
Stiff, rickety, a footbridge spans the gorge and holds.

Incredibly, two robed figures--women, or monks, or angelic
visitors from another time--are walking across. Their words,
so invisible and tiny, go worth to whisper into nations.
Above them, feathery beings pause, lift upon the updraft. 


(from The Guests at the Gate: Poems) (2002)
Picture
Thomas Cole, Genesee Scenery
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