makeshift poems

(from a sculptor’s manual, Geoffrey Clarke and Stroud Cormock, 1968.)

 

Sean Howard

 

 

 

 

section 1. plaster usage

 

 

make shift –

‘intense agitators’

 

*

 

studio – slop

bucket

 

*

 

‘tommies’ – boots.

ltd., rat’s-tail laces

 

*

 

moore – hard

water

 

*

 

‘millions,’ stuck

in art’s lift

 

*

 

‘old school’ – god-

mould

 

 

 

 

section 2. foundry practice

 

 

young midas

in the sandbox

 

*

 

‘these days’ –

prayer’s bowl

 

*

 

‘scientific gaze’ –

wax moon

 

*

 

ego – super

visor?

 

*

 

chisels chase

the charioteer

 

*

 

little boy –

cast shadow

 

 

 

 

section 3. flame and electric welding

 

 

the world fed

through guns?

 

*

 

prison yard –

glass air

 

*

 

stalin’s dream –

metal workers

 

*

 

the hippies knew –

safety clothes?

 

*

 

face shield? arc

of history

 

*

 

warhol – art’s

checkout

 

 

 

 

section 4. plastics

 

 

‘modern’ –

rothko’s caves

 

*

 

‘consumer’ –

vast subject

 

*

 

empire – english

china

 

*

 

picasso – no matter how

much we clamp the frame…

 

*

 

the ‘romantics’? cata-

lysts & accelerators

 

*

 

‘modern’ – man

made plastic

 

 

 

 

section 5. cement, stone and wood

 

 

‘never ending’ – the

woods in the studio

 

*

 

art’s aim –

stone ripples

 

*

 

‘monumental’ –

the little point

 

*

 

‘child’s eye’ – see

under merchants

 

*

 

rapture – the chis-

el, moving the stone

 

*

 

‘in the wood’ –

cherry buddha

 

 

 

 

section 6. repetition casting

 

 

kitchener – melt-

ing point

 

*

 

great art? butter-

fly, ‘remove pin…’

 

*

 

duchamps – ‘invert

the entire thing!’

 

*

 

army life – the

endless peeling…

 

*

 

‘clinical’ – cure only complete

when nothing remains

 

*

 

‘still bubbling?’

sarajavo stew

 

 

 

 

section 7. general construction

 

 

‘godlike’ –

hourglass

 

*

 

the mind’s brace

against the body?

 

*

 

keats’ ‘rules’ – don’t cope;

screw loose; guard down…

 

*

 

‘constant’ –

planed sky

 

*

 

metaphor? ‘area

lit by arc’

 

*

 

‘just look!’ light-

weight eyes

 

 

 

 

section 8. finishing

 

 

‘the great game’ –

art’s console

 

*

 

‘until, eventually…’ –

goldleaf comma

 

*

 

‘soul’? body

filler

 

*

 

‘trained eye,’ keeping

the object submerged

 

*

 

‘japan gold’ – bashō brush-

ing up on silence

 

*

 

‘the great war’ – history’s

brilliant finish

 

 

 

 

section 9. surface coatings

 

 

america in the

case of colour…

 

*

 

boardroom,

the dull shine

 

*

 

art – gloss

over!

 

*

 

man & god –

ruined brushes

 

*

 

‘1492…’ – a whitish bloom

spreading, dulling the surface

 

*

 

‘fallout’ – the paint

sags, then runs down…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sean Howard is the author of Local Calls (Cape Breton University Press, 2009), Incitements (Gaspereau Press, 2011) and The Photographer’s Last Picture (Gaspereau Press, 2016).  His poetry has been widely published in Canada and elsewhere and featured in The Best Canadian Poetry in English (Tightrope Books, 2011 & 2014). 

 

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