Subjects, poem by Caroline Knox

SUBJECTS (Excerpt)
by Caroline Knox

You see them through water and glass,
(both liquids) and through air
with plenty of liquid in it
—water is moving through the air—
you see the large dolphins animated,
unfractious in their native
drink, going
back and forth interacting with
some sort of rings—in a minute-long video—
in a loop, we see these
dolphins again and again
looping through rings,
in indirect discourse
ringing through the loops.
We see, you see, dolphins
advertising something
we don’t have and
we don’t want; advertising
exfoliants and astringents,
humectants,
which dolphins don’t
know about and wouldn’t
want if they did, the
sloe-eyed ones.  They
make us feel free,
silent. “Nature film,
nature film!” See them
in their independence
through water and glass articulating
dolphin home truths.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Caroline Knox is the author of Nine Worthies and Flemish (Wave Books, 2013). Quaker Guns (Wave Books, 2008) received a Recommended Reading Award 2009 from the Massachusetts Center for the Book. He Paves the Road with Iron Bars, published by Verse Press in 2004, won the Maurice English Award 2005 for a book by a poet over 50. A Beaker: New and Selected Poems appeared from Verse Press in 2002. Her previous books are The House Party and To Newfoundland (Georgia 1984, 1989), and Sleepers Wake (Timken 1994). 

Her work has appeared in American Scholar, Boston Review, Harvard Magazine, Massachusetts Review, New Republic, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry (whose Bess Hokin Prize she won),TriQuarterly, The Times Literary Supplement, and Yale Review. Her poems have been in Best American Poetry (1988 and 1994), and onPoetry Daily. Six poems are anthologized in The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, Second Edition.

She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council (1996, 2006), The Fund for Poetry, and the Yale/Mellon Visiting Faculty Program.

Photo: Dolphin playing with air bubble (guy-sports.com)

Editor’s Note: Dolphins blow air bubbles underwater and play with them as toys.

Subjects, poem by Caroline Knox

SUBJECTS (Excerpt)
by Caroline Knox

You see them through water and glass,
(both liquids) and through air
with plenty of liquid in it
—water is moving through the air—
you see the large dolphins animated,
unfractious in their native
drink, going
back and forth interacting with
some sort of rings—in a minute-long video—
in a loop, we see these
dolphins again and again
looping through rings,
in indirect discourse
ringing through the loops.
We see, you see, dolphins
advertising something
we don’t have and
we don’t want; advertising
exfoliants and astringents,
humectants,
which dolphins don’t
know about and wouldn’t
want if they did, the
sloe-eyed ones.  They
make us feel free,
silent. “Nature film,
nature film!” See them
in their independence
through water and glass articulating
dolphin home truths.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Caroline Knox is the author of Nine Worthies and Flemish (Wave Books, 2013). Quaker Guns (Wave Books, 2008) received a Recommended Reading Award 2009 from the Massachusetts Center for the Book. He Paves the Road with Iron Bars, published by Verse Press in 2004, won the Maurice English Award 2005 for a book by a poet over 50. A Beaker: New and Selected Poems appeared from Verse Press in 2002. Her previous books are The House Party and To Newfoundland (Georgia 1984, 1989), and Sleepers Wake (Timken 1994). 

Her work has appeared in American Scholar, Boston Review, Harvard Magazine, Massachusetts Review, New Republic, Paris Review, Ploughshares, Poetry (whose Bess Hokin Prize she won), TriQuarterly, The Times Literary Supplement, and Yale Review. Her poems have been in Best American Poetry (1988 and 1994), and on Poetry Daily. Six poems are anthologized in The Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry, Second Edition.

She has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council (1996, 2006), The Fund for Poetry, and the Yale/Mellon Visiting Faculty Program.

Photo: Dolphin playing with air bubble (guy-sports.com)

Editor’s Note (and I did not know this until today — where have I been?): Dolphins blow air bubbles underwater and play with them as toys.

Andy Warhol and Cecilia Gimenez, Together Again

As mentioned in our August 31st post, the Campbell’s Tomato Soup cans with Warhol-inspired labels are available starting today at Target (yes, the “discount” store). Of those pictured in the photo above, I like the blue and green one best. Target will offer a limited edition of one million cans at 75 cents each.

Not to spoil the party (so I won’t talk about it here), but  readers may wish to check out livestrong.com for a discussion of the ingredients in Campbell’s Tomato Soup. (Anyway, if I buy a Warhol-inspired can of soup from Target, I don’t intend to open it!)

Since we’re discussing Warhol and soup, this post includes another entry in The Cecilia Prize, the contest that honors the good intentions of Cecilia Gimenez — the parishioner from Borja, Spain, who picked up a paint brush and tried (that’s the operative word) to restore “Ecce Homo,” a flaking fresco of Christ on the wall of her church. This Warhol-inspired entry, Ecce Soup, was created by Twitter @ewajoan.

Campbell’s Soup in Andy Warhol Colors

Most Americans will spend what many consider the last weekend of summer going to the beach or pool, having backyard barbecues, enjoying long bike rides, or getting the kids ready for school. But for art lovers, there is only one place to be this Labor Day weekend — your local Target store.

That’s right, folks, Tar-zhay! And why would an art aficionado spend the last precious days of summer vacation or last long weekend until Thanksgiving walking the endless aisles of a discount retailer? The answer: Warholia! Yes, exclusively at Target, starting September 2, 2012, you can purchase your very own “limited-edition line of Warhol-themed condensed tomato soup cans,” to quote from a recent L.A. Times article by David Ng.

Priced at 75 cents each, the cans commemorate the 50th anniversary of Andy Warhol‘s creation — yes it’s been that long (in 1962, the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles first exhibited Warhol Campbell’s Soup can paintings).

According to an official Campbell’s Soup spokesperson (how would you like that job?), a portion of the proceeds will benefit the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.