Stay Inspired: Shelter in Place 2020 by dolbychadwickgallery

STAY INSPIRED S H ELT ER I N P L AC E 2O2O

“Great art suspends the reverted eye, the lamented past, the anticipated future: we enter with it into the timeless present; we are with God today, perfect in our manner and mode, open to the riches and the glories of a realm that time forgot, but that great art reminds us of: not by its content, but by what it does in us: suspends the desire to be elsewhere. And thus it undoes the agitated grasping in the heart of the suffering self, and releases us—maybe for a second, maybe for a minute, maybe for all eternity—releases us from the coil of ourselves.” —Ken Wilbur

CON T E N T S

I N T RO D U C T I O N

Jürgen Möllers, The Intimacy of the Physical . . . ......... AU G U S T 2 5

ED I T I O N 1

Naomi Shihab Nye & John DiPaolo. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... M A RC H 18

ED I T I O N 2

William Chene & James Kennedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... M A RC H 19

ED I T I O N 3

Philippe Jaccottet & Vanessa Marsh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......... M A RC H 2O

ED I T I O N 4

Pablo Neruda & Ada Sadler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... M A RC H 21

ED I T I O N 5

Erik Campbell & Stephen De Staebler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......... M A RC H 24

ED I T I O N 6

Tony Hoagland & Sherié Franssen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...........M A RC H 2 5

ED I T I O N 7

Billy Collins & Gary Ruddell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......... M A RC H 26

ED I T I O N 8

Federico García Lorca & Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann ...... M A RC H 27

ED I T I O N 1 O

Devorah Major & Mayme Kratz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... M A RC H 3 1

ED I T I O N 11

Tamsin Smith & Ian Kimmerly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ A P R I L 1

ED I T I O N 12

Jack Gilbert & Éric Antoine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... A P R I L 2

ED I T I O N 13

Ada Limón & Jesper Blåder . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... A P R I L 3

ED I T I O N 14

Pablo Neruda & Alex Kanevsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... A P R I L 4

ED I T I O N 1 5

Tess Taylor & Lisa MCCutcheon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... A P R I L 7

ED I T I O N 16

E. E. Cummings & Udo Nöger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... A P R I L 8

ED I T I O N 17

Tony Hoagland & Edwige Fouvry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... A P R I L 9

ED I T I O N 18

Jack Hirschman & Robert Kingston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. A P R I L 1 O

ED I T I O N 2O

Rainer Maria Rilke & Vanessa Marsh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. A P R I L 14

ED I T I O N 21

Seamus Heaney & Louise LeBourgeois . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. A P R I L 1 5

ED I T I O N 2 2

Naomi Shihab Nye & Bernadette Jiyong Frank . .............. A P R I L 16

ED I T I O N 2 3

Czeslaw Milosz & Matt Gonzalez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. A P R I L 17

ED I T I O N 24

Robert Bly & Guy Diehl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. A P R I L 18

ED I T I O N 2 5

Mary Oliver & Barbara Vaughn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. A P R I L 21

ED I T I O N 26

Juan Ramón Jiménez & Bill Armstrong . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. A P R I L 2 2

ED I T I O N 27

Rumi & Tom Lieber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. A P R I L 2 3

ED I T I O N 28

Paul Celan & Terry St. John . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. A P R I L 24

ED I T I O N 29

E. E. Cummings & Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann . . . . ............. A P R I L 2 5

ED I T I O N 3 O

Czeslaw Milosz & Hunt Rettig . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............. A P R I L 28

ED I T I O N 3 1

Miguel de Unamuno & Kai Samuels- Davis . . . . . . . ............. A P R I L 29

ED I T I O N 32

Rebecca Elson & Danae Mattes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............ A P R I L 3 O

ED I T I O N 33

Kay Ryan & Ann Gale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .................. M AY 1

ED I T I O N 3 4

Joy Harjo & Mayme Kratz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................. M AY 2

ED I T I O N 3 5

Mary Oliver & Michael Kenna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................. M AY 5

ED I T I O N 3 7

Jane Hirshfield & Betty Merken. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................. M AY 7

ED I T I O N 3 8

Tony Hoagland & Amanda Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................. M AY 8

ED I T I O N 39

Stephen Spender & Stephen De Staebler. . . . . . . . . . . ................. M AY 9

ED I T I O N 41

Matt Gonzalez & Charley Brown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ M AY 13

ED I T I O N 42

Louise Glück & Robert Kingston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ M AY 14

ED I T I O N 43

Oriah & Ann Weber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ M AY 1 5

ED I T I O N 4 4

Rabindranath Tagore & Alex Kanevsky . . . . . . . . . . . ................ M AY 16

ED I T I O N 45

Joy Harjo & Jim Phalen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ M AY 18

ED I T I O N 47

Thomas Hardy & Jaq Chartier. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ M AY 21

ED I T I O N 4 8

Kenneth Patchen & Robert Kingston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... M AY 2 2

S P EC I A L ED I T I O N

Devorah Major . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... M AY 2 5

ED I T I O N 5 O

Pablo Neruda & Louise LeBourgeois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... M AY 26

ED I T I O N 51

Raymond Carver & Éric Antoine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... M AY 27

ED I T I O N 5 4

Stanley Kunitz & John DiPaolo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. M AY 3 O

ED I T I O N 55

Lawrence Ferlinghetti & Lisa Russell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ J U N E 2

ED I T I O N 5 6

Rosario Castellanos & Sherié Franssen. . . . . . . . . . . . ................ J U N E 3

ED I T I O N 5 7

David Whyte & Michael Kenna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ J U N E 4

ED I T I O N 5 8

Dean Rader & James Kennedy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ J U N E 5

ED I T I O N 6 O

Louise Glück & Tom Lieber. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ J U N E 9

ED I T I O N 63

Matthew Zapruder & Ian Kimmerly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... J U N E 12

ED I T I O N 6 4

Jack Hirschman & Udo Nöger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... J U N E 13

ED I T I O N 65

Philip Larkin & Matt Gonzalez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... J U N E 16

ED I T I O N 6 6

Rumi & Bill Armstrong . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... J U N E 17

ED I T I O N 6 7

David Watts & Rick Chapman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... J U N E 18

ED I T I O N 6 8

Devorah Major & Edwige Fouvry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... J U N E 19

ED I T I O N 69

David Whyte & Michael Kenna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. J U N E 2O

ED I T I O N 7O

Raymond Carver & Joshua Meyer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. J U N E 2 3

ED I T I O N 7 1

Danusha Laméris & Jim Phalen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. J U N E 24

ED I T I O N 7 2

Brenda Hillman & Vanessa Marsh . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. J U N E 2 5

ED I T I O N 7 3

Mark Sanders & Hollis Heichemer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .............. J U N E 26

ED I T I O N 74

Stuart Kestenbaum & Marshall Crossman . . . . . . . ...............J U N E 27

ED I T I O N 7 5

Rumi & Jenifer Kent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................. J U LY 1

ED I T I O N 76

Devorah Major & Bernadette Jiyong Frank . . . . . . . ................. J U LY 4

ED I T I O N 7 7

T.S. Eliot & Jennifer Pochinski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ J U LY 8

ED I T I O N 78

Billy Collins & Louise LeBourgeois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ................ J U LY 12

ED I T I O N 8 O

Derek Walcott & Alex Kanevsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... J U LY 18

ED I T I O N 81

Hafiz & David Kelso . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... J U LY 2 2

ED I T I O N 82

Lucille Clifton & Danae Mattes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ............... J U LY 2 5

ED I T I O N 83

Charlie Pendergast & Kai Samuels-Davis . . . . . . . . . .............. J U LY 3 O

ED I T I O N 8 4

Alice Walker & Hunt Rettig. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ........... AU G U S T 1

ED I T I O N 8 5

Wendell Berry & Barbara Vaughn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ......... AU G U S T 26

ED I T I O N 8 6

Gregory Orr & Alex Kanevsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..... S EP T EM B ER 17

ED I T I O N 87

Dean Young & Amanda Means . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... S EP T EM B ER 26

AC K N OW L ED G EM EN T S

Lisa Dolby Chadwick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .... S EP T EM B ER 26

W I D EN I N G C I RC L E S

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M A RC H 19 – J U LY 24

T H E I N T I M AC Y OF T H E PH Y SIC A L Jürgen Möllers When the coronavirus first began to spread in the U.S., a poet friend asked me a question: “If things get rough, what do you think people will really need, penicillin or poems?” The question was, of course, meant rhetorically; the answer seemed self-evident: when our life is threatened, everything else becomes secondary. “First the food, then the morals,” Bertolt Brecht wrote a century ago. And yet, when Dolby Chadwick Gallery started Stay Inspired , it seemed to tap into something that felt both immediate and essential, a dormant force just waiting to be touched. Almost immediately, people from Cape Town to Paris began to respond, sending messages of gratitude and appreciation. A spontaneous community was springing up, celebrating the intersection of images and words. Stay Inspired was rapidly developing a life of its own. What was the force behind this momentum, I wondered—what was it that Stay Inspired was tapping into? At least in part, it seemed a response to the anxiety and confusion of a world falling apart. Art, after all, has always been a response to adversity—as reminder, refuge, or revolt. Poetry brings clarity and insight; painting, boldness and novel ways of seeing the world. Both, in their own way, were antidotes to the profound disorientation caused by the pandemic. But maybe Stay Inspired was also tapping into something that wasn’t a response, that wasn’t in some way contingent on the pandemic craziness. Maybe the many deprivations that the pandemic forced on us had only raised our awareness of something even more essential. In an essay for The New York Times Magazine, Hisham Matar mentions a conversation with a friend of his, a curator at the National Gallery in London, who told him how strange it was to walk the empty hallways of the museum with nobody looking at the paintings. Matar points out that “a painting is never finished, that it must continue to do its work long after it has been hung on the gallery wall, that a picture relies on us to complete it.” Maybe, I wondered, the reverse was just as true; maybe there was some very real and essential way in which we need art and poetry to complete us. Stay Inspired began as a simple gesture. Dolby Chadwick Gallery’s founder, Lisa Dolby Chadwick, wanted to reach out to

her friends and artists to share two of the things she loves most: art and poetry. As she puts it, “Covid-19 was beginning to occupy every last corner of our minds. Everything in the news and my inbox was about Covid. I felt a great need for something that can help us free up our thinking and stay creative, fluid, alive. With so much anxiety and confusion around, I felt a great need to stay inspired. This project helped me get through the worst days.” The need for inspiration was so relevant because the coronavirus posed a threat to more than our physical body. Breath, the most visible sign of life, has always also been a symbol for spirit and for inspiration—spiritus means “breath” in Latin. By attacking our capacity to breathe, the virus is endangering the vitality of our body, mind, and spirit.

AUGUST 25

Equally important, the virus cuts off another essential pathway: the connection to our community. Shelter-in-place, quarantine, and social distance have turned physical touch into a hazard, and a shared meal into a risk. “If nothing else,” Lisa Dolby Chadwick says, “the virus has shown us how interconnected we are, and what happens when, all of a sudden, we take away the physical reality of that connection. It’s as if we found ourselves, in Pablo Neruda’s words, ‘… together / in a sudden strangeness.’ Art and poetry, I think, are so deeply needed because they have always connected us as a community—to the artist, to each other, to our shared humanity. The more we were forced into isolation, the more I wanted to reach out and deepen our connection this way.” Perhaps most pronounced was the sense of profound disorientation that was brought about by the pandemic. It called into question what things really mattered and what risks we were willing—and permitted—to take for them. It put to the test the balance of social conformity and individual liberty. And it allowed for the pandemic’s politicization, which at times made it seem as if almost anything could be twisted and spun. The result was a sense of confusion and fragmentation that made it difficult to connect to our personal experience as a wholesome and reliable guide. Amidst all this turmoil, art offered a refuge of stubborn resilience and authenticity. The painter Tom Lieber said we don’t smell a rose and wonder, “Beautiful smell, but what does it mean?” Art and poetry are first and foremost to be taken on their own terms; they are objects of beauty in and of themselves, creating their own views into our world. They may be open to interpretation, but the experiences they provide are not (or at least not primarily) dependent on interpretation. These experiences, rather, are the result of intimate encounters with ourselves, insights into our shared humanity and its embeddedness in the natural world. When we smell a rose, we always also experience ourselves as smelling the rose, and it is this “experiencing-ourselves” that makes such an encounter personal, intimate, sensuous, and full. Not only are our noses delighted, we are delighted—wholly and intimately. Art and poetry provide a dedicated space for true intimacy. To “stay inspired” means to continue experiencing intimacy. Our new reality reminds us daily of how much we took for granted in the pre-Covid paradigm, how much we have been deprived of after. Jack Gilbert tells us that we would lessen the importance of deprivation if we didn’t “risk delight,” if we didn’t have “the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.” Maybe it was necessary for us to lose things, as Naomi Shihab Nye says, to “feel the future dissolve in a moment / like salt in a weakened broth.” Stay Inspired is a collection of such moments, put together with no other intention than to “risk delight.” The poems and the paintings were not meant to comment on or elucidate one another; rather, as Lisa Dolby Chadwick explains, “I took some of my favorite poems and paired them with paintings that share a similar sensitivity.” If there is an underlying thread, it is one akin to Erik Campbell’s vision of a “group coup d’etat against states / Of sadness and regret, a revolution of gesture … insisting / Yes, this is the place; the very thing, / The good.” “The pandemic has forced many of us to slow down, to pause,” says Lisa Dolby Chadwick. “People started to look at each other in the streets; there was a palpable sense of intimacy, of being in this together; a sense of a kinder, gentler self. To me, these poems and paintings are reminders of this sense of self and of our profound connection with each other.”

N AOM I S H I H A B N Y E So Much Happiness

It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness. With sadness there is something to rub against, a wound to tend with lotion and cloth. When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up, something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change. But happiness floats. It doesn’t need you to hold it down. It doesn’t need anything. Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing, and disappears when it wants to. You are happy either way. Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house and now live over a quarry of noise and dust cannot make you unhappy. Everything has a life of its own, it too could wake up filled with possibilities of coffee cake and ripe peaches, and love even the floor which needs to be swept, the soiled linens and scratched records… Since there is no place large enough to contain so much happiness, you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you into everything you touch. You are not responsible. You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it, and in that way, be known.

EDITION 1 – MARCH 18

JOH N Di PAOL O Untitled Revolver #4 | 2020 | Oil on canvas | 70 x 126 inches

WILLI A M CHENE Jazz

Somewhere between the wide open spaces And those tiny, secret places in the heart, The sound of nursery rhymes and temple chimes Mingle with incense and nonsense Until even the air has to smile. That’s where you’ll find me, In my hiding place, Making up rhymes and trying to keep time To the pace of the tick tock tick of a million clocks, All running at different licks, telling different times. Each one... an event in my life, A birth or a death… It’s hard to get the meter right When the passing of time Is split just two ways between day and night And I am like a river of words That keeps getting lost In those forgotten cemeteries And back water tributaries That run so deeply through my soul.

Once, in a dream Someone stole from sleep and gave to me, A child asked me, “What is jazz?” And suddenly I wake up in a cold sweat I’m sitting on a hill in Tibet with the Dali Lama. And he smiles and looks on As a long line of Buddhist Monks March passed us in single file They’re wearing cowboy boots And bright orange suits of the latest style. And all the while, there this thick, pushy wind. It makes a golden baritone sax begin To sing a song of long And low strung out notes That seem to randomly float But still ring true While extended chords Hang in the air like sweet perfume.

EDITION 2 – MARCH 19

And then, from out of nowhere Comes this random, driving, rhythm sound As the back beat races like a pounding heart With its hand slapping bass And its drums in your face And you know right from the start It’s full of wisdom and pain, with a sound so cool That even John Coltrane Would have to smile and say, “Yeah, that’s ok.” ‘Cause no one can touch this beat By snapping their fingers or tapping their feet, You see, jazz is a different kind of pain It hurts like the blues... But doesn’t ever complain And no one can tell you how or why Jazz shouldn’t have to be explained Because, the words, They’d never come out the same. You might as well try counting fireflies in a jar Till you think you know How many there are… Or wait for that line of Buddhists Monks To finally come home Lured by Zen poems and nursery rhymes To my hiding place where the sacred chimes Always play at ¾ time And a high hat symbol Made of brass and silk Whispers to the world, “I always loved you” While the sound of temple bells Play softly, behind a music That never tells.

J A M E S K E N N E DY Notation 2404/19 | 2019 | Acrylic polymer / graphite on incised masonite panel | 64 x 74 inches

PH I L I PPE J ACCO T T E T Distances

Swifts turn in the heights of air; higher still turn the invisible stars. When day withdraws to the ends of the earth their fires shine on a dark expanse of sand. We live in a world of motion and distance. The heart flies from tree to bird, from bird to distant star, from star to love; and love grows in the quiet house, turning and working, servant of thought, a lamp held in one hand.

Translated by Derek Mahon

EDITION 3 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MARCH 2O

VA N E S S A M A R S H Landscape #36, Edition of 5 | 2o17 | Archival pigment print from photogram negative | 40 x 40 inches

PA BL O N E RU DA Keeping Quiet

Now we will count to twelve and we will all keep still. For once on the face of the earth, let’s not speak in any language, let’s stop for one second, and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines, we would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Fisherman in the cold sea would not harm whales and the man gathering salt would look at his hurt hands.

If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead and later proves to be alive. Now I’ll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.

Translated by Alastair Reid

Those who prepare green wars, wars with gas, wars with fire, victory with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers in the shade, doing nothing. What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about; I want no truck with death.

EDITION 4 – MARCH 21

A DA S A DL E R Train Chairs #46 | 2o19 | Oil on panel | 9 x 9 inches

E R I K C A M P BE L L The Golden Age of Good Times

Can one point to a golden age of good times?

—Stephen Dobyns

If we should all at once decide to try, Like a group coup d’etat against states Of sadness and regret, a revolution of gesture Consisting of index fingers, human compass Points trying for good and true norths, How many of us would be found pointing At one another, hoping at every turn to find So many welcome, reciprocal accusations? (Knowing that this is how the world Will end, not with bangs, whimpers, Or any slouchings toward Bethlehem; The world will end in hopeful indications.) How many of the formerly, seemingly sad, Confronted with such a charge, would be Suddenly rendered happy, having only To point the length of their front lawn?

And of the ones lucky enough to need Only point to a photograph in a frame? For the first time they would be envied By all pointers except those too busy Pointing at history or rebuttals On page 9 of The New York Times . And we’d reckon soon with those who, Out of diffidence, persist in pointing At their chins or their elbows, insisting, Yes, this is the place; the very thing, The good . Yes, here we come,

All of us, with our arms raised, our fingers Extended, ultimately indicating everything; We’re strolling about our own Augustan Romes, not surprised at all by how it was So simply found amongst what were told, But were never convinced, were ruins.

EDITION 5 – MARCH 24

S T E P H E N DE S TA E BL E R Winged Figure with Three Legs, Edition of 4 | 2003 | Bronze | 84 x 28 x 31 inches

T ON Y HOAGL A N D Entangle

Sometimes I prefer not to untangle it. I prefer it to remain disorganized,

My ferocious love, and how it repeatedly is trapped inside my fear of being sentimental;

because it is richer that way like a certain shrubbery I pass each day on Reba Street

my need to control even the kindness of the world, rejecting gifts for which I am not prepared;

in an unimpressive yard, in front of a house that seems unoccupied: a chest-high, spreading shrub with large white waxy blossoms—

my apparently inextinguishable notion that I am moving toward a destination

whose stalks are climbed and woven through simultaneously by a different kind of vine with small magenta flowers

—I could probably untangle it yet I prefer to walk down Reba Street instead

that appear and disappear inside the maze of leaves like tiny purple stitches.

in the sunlight and the wind, with no mastery of my feelings or my thoughts,

The white and purple combination of these species, one seeming to possibly be strangling the other,

purple and ivory and green, not understanding what I am and yet in certain moments remembering, and bursting into tears,

one possibly lifting the other up—it would take both a botanist and a psychologist to figure it all out,

somewhat confused as the vines run through me and flower unexpectedly.

—but I prefer not to disentangle it, because it is more accurate.

EDITION 6 – MARCH 25

S H E R I Ã&#x2030; F R A NS S E N Raven | 2o19 | Oil on canvas | 8o x 7o inches

BI L LY COL L I NS This Much I Do Remember

It was after dinner. You were talking to me across the table about something or other, a greyhound you had seen that day or a song you liked, and I was looking past you over your bare shoulder at the three oranges lying on the kitchen counter next to the small electric bean grinder, which was also orange, and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil. All of which converged into a random still life, so fastened together by the hasp of color, and so fixed behind the animated foreground of your talking and smiling, gesturing and pouring wine, and the camber of your shoulder

that I could feel it being painted within me, brushed on the wall of my skull, while the tone of your voice lifted and fell in its flight, and the three oranges remained fixed on the counter the way stars are said to be fixed in the universe. Then all the moments of the past began to line up behind that moment and all the moments to come assembled in front of it in a long row, giving me reason to believe that this was a moment I had rescued from the millions that rush out of sight into a darkness behind the eyes. Even after I have forgotten what year it is, my middle name, and the meaning of money, I will still carry in my pocket the small coin of that moment, minted in the kingdom that we pace through every day.

EDITION 7 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MARCH 26

G A R Y RU DDE L L The Kiss | 2o16 | Oil on panel | 32 x 24 inches

F E DE R ICO G A RC Í A L ORC A Juan Ramón Jiménez

Into the infinite white, snow, spice-plants, and salt he took his imagination, and left it. The color white is walking over a silent carpet made of the feathers of a dove. With no eyes or gestures it takes in a dream without moving. But it trembles inside. In the infinite white his imagination left such a pure and deep wound! In the infinite white. Snow. Spice-plants. Salt.

Translated by Robert Bly

EDITION 8 – MARCH 27

K AT H ER IN E TZU-L A N M A NN Wrap | 2019 | Acrylic, silkscreen, collage, and sumi ink on paper | 55.25 x 75.25 inches

DE VOR A H M A JOR we are this place

we are so much more than we imagine

we are this place the clay and salt of it the river and sand of it fingers rise from desert dunes faces emerge from cresting waves bodies unfold like tropical blossoms flush with the odors of honey and decay we are the forests we fell the mountains we devour the lands we poison

we are spirit resilient rock unforgiving wind eternal let us move now from the storms of hate and fear and cleanse this place that is us sacrifice nothing but our arrogance and the need to destroy and subvert the glories of the universe that are us

our bodies are the seed and ash of this place we are not merely the caretakers of this place we are this place, this place of gold and silt

we are more than we have imagined more than we have invented and discovered inside our pulsing dreams

and what will we do with this gift and debt where in prayer is the space for truth

sing with me of a better day when we learn this planet as ourselves full of the freshness of a newbornâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eyes

where amidst these interminable wars is the table of compassion set

we are this place shaping its tomorrows

even in our worm selves as we turn and spit fertilizing the future with our waste

we need to dream it well

EDITION 1O â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MARCH 31

M AY M E K R A T Z Vanishing Light 16 | 2020 | Resin and weeds on panel | 60 x 60 inches

TA M SI N S M I T H Adagio Cantabile

It’s pouring down I too am waiting Less like rain Than a lesson in rain The earth demands As a flower shouts So little of what she wants Listen for the leaves who’ve stayed Loyal kin to the honey bee Light industry in a minor scale Each natural nervous development Expands to please even the richly Thick in our counterfeit bliss Unhuddled we are so At the furrow of this loss Peering for the flicker Of shadow rime Our smallest symphony A wind section Bow at the chest Just one movement In the key of grace

EDITION 11 – APRIL 1

I A N K I M M E R LY Another Current | 2019 | Oil on canvas | 60 x 72 inches

J AC K GI L BE R T A Brief for the Defense

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies are not starving someplace, they are starving somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. But we enjoy our lives because that’s what God wants. Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women at the fountain are laughing together between the suffering they have known and the awfulness in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody in the village is very sick. There is laughter every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta, and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay. If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction, we lessen the importance of their deprivation. We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil. If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down, we should give thanks that the end had magnitude. We must admit there will be music despite everything. We stand at the prow again of a small ship anchored late at night in the tiny port looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning. To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth all the years of sorrow that are to come.

EDITION 12 – APRIL 2

Ã&#x2030; R IC A N T OI N E Drowning Flowers III A | 2019 | Ambrotype | 12.75 x 10.50 inches

A DA L I MÓN Instructions on Not Giving Up

More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor’s almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate sky of Spring rains, it’s the greening of the trees that really gets to me. When all the shock of white and taffy, the world’s baubles and trinkets, leave the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath, the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin growing over whatever winter did to us, a return to the strange idea of continuous living despite the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then, I’ll take it, the tree seems to say, a new slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I’ll take it all.

EDITION 13 – APRIL 3

J E S P E R BL Ă&#x2026; DE R Treasure | 2019 | Oil on panel | 32 x 43.25 inches

PA BL O N E RU DA Sonnet LXXXI

And now youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream. Love and pain and work should all sleep, now. The night turns on its invisible wheels, and you are pure beside me as a sleeping amber. No one else, Love, will sleep in my dreams. You will go, we will go together, over the waters of time. No one else will travel through the shadows with me, only you, evergreen, ever sun, ever moon. Your hands have already opened their delicate fists and let their soft drifting signs drop away; your eyes closed like two gray wings, and I move after, following the folding water you carry, that carries me away. The night, the world, the wind spin out their destiny. Without you, I am your dream, only that, and that is all

Translated by Stephen Tapscott

EDITION 14 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; APRIL 4

A L E X K A N E VS K Y M.H. | 2020 | Oil on panel | 18 x 18 inches

T E SS TAY L OR Song with Wild Plum & Thorn

The morning is cold & the world is hard but even in fog it is still midsummer.

the thought feels strangely radical, crumb or bloom beyond

The kids need to play & the grocery budget ticks toward nothing the way

loneliness. For a while, I feel entirely animal, little forager

the world tips towards doomsday. The walls in my chest will not let me breathe

hungry for fruit. Black sparkle, pale pit & thorn—

& all the screens flicker & still answer nothing, so I take the children down to the bike path,

weeds binding some world together.

& with buckets & a few blessed hours wander a corridor of weedy fruit.

A word appears in my mind holdfast hold fast—

Blackberry, wild plum, all overhung: we leaners or gleaners half-acrobatic lost among boughs—alone till I notice others stopping

sprout—raw volunteer—

for a while it is hand to mouth & to bucket breathing —still here still here—

with buckets or tiffins in many languages along these tracks picking what weeds we still hold in common as dry heat builds and fog thins. In common, in common—

EDITION 15 – APRIL 7

L I S A M C C U T C H E ON Rooster | 2019 | Water-soluble oil on Mylar and photo-transfer on synthetic silk on paper | 60 x 65 inches

E . E . C U M M I NGS [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it(anywhere i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling) i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true) and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

EDITION 16 – APRIL 8

U DO NÃ&#x2013;GE R Acima 7 | 2018 | Mixed media on canvas | 71 x 88 inches

T ON Y HOAGL A N D A Color of the Sky

Windy today and I feel less than brilliant, driving over the hills from work. There are the dark parts on the road when you pass through clumps of wood and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean, but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.

Last night I dreamed of X again. She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets. Years ago she penetrated me but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, I never got her out, but now I’m glad.

I should call Marie and apologize for being so boring at dinner last night, but can I really promise not to be that way again? And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle. What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel. What I thought was an injustice turned out to be a color of the sky.

Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail; the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves are full of infant chlorophyll, the very tint of inexperience. Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio, and on the highway overpass, the only metaphysical vandal in America has written MEMORY LOVES TIME in big black spraypaint letters, which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.

Outside the youth center, between the liquor store and the police station, a little dogwood tree is losing its mind; overflowing with blossomfoam, like a sudsy mug of beer; like a bride ripping off her clothes, dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds, so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene. It’s been doing that all week: making beauty, and throwing it away, and making more.

EDITION 17 – APRIL 9

E DW IGE F OU V R Y L’arrivée à Locmaria | 2020 | Oil on canvas | 59 x 78 inches

J AC K H I R SC H M A N The Sur Ivan O’Roc Arcane

Should I…? If I go there…? What if someone who has it touches me?

born. China’s smited, Italy smited, Japan, South Korea, Iran, the United States

People are afraid of breath, that they’ll inhale this hell or exhale it on others.

operas, Broadway theaters, concerts. Laughter’s been restricted, belly

a zero had arrived at all the numbers of the world’s peoples. But look, in Italy,

I’m 86, I’ve had pneumonia, been in hospital with C.O.P.D. as well. Should I

smited as well as any and everywhere else. This virus’s the crown of the

Afraid of touching lest they pass it along. People are living as un-screamed shreiks,

laughter zoned to a living room or a kitchen table. We’re all at home

amid hundreds dying in a single day, people stand on the balconies

go on? It’s allover everything—computers, CNN, androids, smart phones. You’re 74

pantheon of dis-ease, the constellation of Being framed by the concealed true lie

in the anguish of an angst abated only by opiated oblivion. Sur Ivan O’Roc

anxiously waiting for it to end because a cough can nail me to it, or my breath

of their apartments and sing the songs close to their hearts to warm their hearts

in a couple of weeks, love, which is also on its age-register. Keep your natural

that’s truly the biological truth of the pandemic explosion in the atomic

I misheard, thinking it was an Irishman who’d picked up the virus in California,

breathes and doesn’t know if my exhalation carries the bug of the bat or the snake,

and hopefully this can be a contagion of hope confronting the disease,

humor strong; it’s important to laugh at the unknown or even with it.

devastation of the nucleus of the eye.

instead of the title of this Arcane in reverse, that is, Coronavirus

and all those Russian vodkas have failed. I’m telling you from my 86 years that

and houses of song be born allover the world to be the best vaccine there is: all

because everything’s in reverse, postponed, set back, from sports events, Disneyland,

the whole world’s been 86’d from its happiness, forced to live as if, as if

of us singing for real

This coronavirus wants to destroy the Planetariet just as it was being

EDITION 18 – APRIL 1O

The Internationale!

ROBE R T K I NGS T ON Requerdo | 2019 | Acrylic and enamel on canvas | 60 x 48 inches

R A INER M AR I A R ILKE Sunset

Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors which it passes to a row of ancient trees. You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you, one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth, leaving you, not really belonging to either, not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent, not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing that turns to a star each night and climbsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads) your own life, timid and standing high and growing, so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out, one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.

Translated by Robert Bly

EDITION 2O â&#x20AC;&#x201C; APRIL 14

VA N E S S A M A R S H The Sun Beneath the Sky, Untitled #34 | 2019 | Unique silver gelatin lumen photogram | 16 x 20 inches

S E A M US H E A N E Y Postscript

And some time make the time to drive out west Into Country Clare, along the Flaggy Shore, In September or October, when the wind And the light are working off each other So that the ocean on one side is wild With foam and glitter, and inland among stones The surface of a slate-grey lake is lit By the earthed lightning of a flock of swans, Their feathers roughed and ruffling, white on white, Their fully grown headstrong-looking heads Tucked or cresting or busy underwater. Useless to think youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll park and capture it More thoroughly. You are neither here nor there, A hurry through which known and strange things pass As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways And catch the heart off guard and blow it open.

EDITION 21 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; APRIL 15

L OU I S E L E BOU RGE OI S Nighttime, dreaming of day | 2020 | Oil on panel | 48 x 48 inches

N AOM I S H I H A B N Y E Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.

EDITION 22 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; APRIL 16

BE R N A DE T T E J I YONG F R A N K Migrant (Orange) | 2018 | Oil and acrylic on panel | 20 x 16 inches

C Z E S L AW M I L OSZ Gift

A day so happy. Fog lifted early, I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I knew no one worth my envying him. Whatever evil I had suffered, I forgot. To think that once I was the same man did not embarrass me. In my body I felt no pain. When straightening up, I saw the blue sea and sails.

Translated by Robert Hass

EDITION 23 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; APRIL 17

M A T T G ON Z A L E Z The palpable corner, brewed neither | 2020 | Found-paper collage | 18 x 14 inches

ROBE R T BLY Things to Think

Think in ways you’ve never thought before If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message Larger than anything you’ve ever heard, Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats. Think that someone may bring a bear to your door, Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers A child of your own whom you’ve never seen. When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s about To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven, Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that it’s Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

EDITION 24 – APRIL 18

G U Y DI E H L Conversation with Egon Schiele | 2019 | Acrylic on canvas | 24 x 30 inches

M A R Y OL I V E R Wild Geese

You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clear blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and excitingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; over and over announcing your place in the family of things

EDITION 25 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; APRIL 21

B A R B A R A VAUG H N Katartia 3, Edition of 5 | 2012 | Archival pigment print | 46 x 68 inches

J UA N R A MÓN J I M É N E Z I Am Not I

I am not I. I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see, whom at times I manage to visit, and whom at other times I forget; who remains calm and silent while I talk, and forgives, gently, when I hate, who walks where I am not, who will remain standing when I die.

Translated by Robert Bly

EDITION 26 – APRIL 22

BI L L A R M S T RONG Film Noir #1410, Edition of 5 | 2011 | Chromogenic print | 48 x 40 inches

RU M I Today, Like Every Other Day

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Translated by Coleman Barks

EDITION 27 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; APRIL 23

T OM L I E BE R Blue Dive | 2020 | Oil on canvas | 84 x 60 inches

PAU L C E L A N Corona

From my Hand the Autumn eats its Leaf: we are Friends. We shell Time from Nuts and teach it to walk: Time returns to the Shell. In the mirror it’s Sunday, in Dream there is sleep, the Mouth speaks true. My eye bends down to the Sex of my Loved One: we gaze at each other, we speak a Darkness between us, we love each other as Poppy and Memory, we sleep like Wine in the Mussel, like the Sea in the Blood-Beam of Moons. We stand entwined at the Window, they look up at us from the Street: it is Time, that they knew! It is Time, that the Stone condescended to flower, that Unrest’s Heart beat. It is Time that it became, Time. It is Time.

Translated by Tony Kline

EDITION 28 – APRIL 24

T E R R Y S T. JOH N Thai Woman with White Cup | 2019 | Oil on canvas | 48 x 42 inches

E . E . C U M M I NGS I thank You God for most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes (i who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth day of life and of love and wings:and of the gay great happening illimitably earth) how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any—lifted from the no of all nothing—human merely being doubt unimaginable You? (not the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are open)

EDITION 29 – APRIL 25

K AT H ER IN E TZU-L A N M A NN Crest 2 | 2020 | Acrylic, sumi ink, and monoprint on paper | 55 x 95 inches

C Z E S L AW M I L OSZ Awakened

In advanced age, my health worsening, I woke up in the middle of the night and experienced a feeling of happiness so intense and perfect that in all my life I had only felt its premonition. And there was no reason for it. It didn’t obliterate consciousness; the past, which I carried, was there, together with my grief. And it was suddenly included, was a necessary part of the whole. As if a voice were repeating: “You can stop worrying now; everything happened just as it had to. You did what was assigned to you, and you are not required anymore to think of what happened long ago.” The peace I felt was a closing of accounts and was connected with the thought of death. The happiness on this side was like an announcement of the other side. I realized that this was an undeserved gift and I could not grasp by what grace it was bestowed on me.

Translated by Robert Hass

EDITION 3O – APRIL 28

H U N T R E T T IG Scaled Thought | 2019 | Polyester film, synthetic rubber, and acrylics | 60 x 48 inches

M IG U E L DE U N A M U NO Throw Yourself Like Seed

Shake off this sadness, and recover your spirit; Sluggish you will never see the wheel of fate That brushes your heel as it turns going by, The man who wants to live is the man in whom life is abundant. Now you are only giving food to that final pain Which is slowly winding you in the nets of death, But to live is to work, and the only thing which lasts Is the work; start there, turn to the work. Throw yourself like seed as you walk, and into your own field, Don’t turn your face for that would be to turn it to death, And do not let the past weigh down your motion. Leave what’s alive in the furrow, what’s dead in yourself, For life does not move in the same way as a group of clouds; From your work you will be able one day to gather yourself.

Translated by Robert Bly

EDITION 31 – APRIL 29

K A I S A M U E L S - DAV I S Carried | 2019 | Oil on panel | 14 x 11 inches

R E BE CC A E L SON Antidotes to Fear of Death

Sometimes as an antidote To fear of death, I eat the stars. Those nights, lying on my back, I suck them from the quenching dark Til they are all, all inside me, Pepper hot and sharp. Sometimes, instead, I stir myself Into a universe still young, Still warm as blood: No outer space, just space, The light of all the not yet stars Drifting like a bright mist, And all of us, and everything Already there But unconstrained by form. And sometimes itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s enough To lie down here on earth Beside our long ancestral bones: To walk across the cobble fields Of our discarded skulls, Each like a treasure, like a chrysalis, Thinking: whatever left these husks Flew off on bright wings.

EDITION 32 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; APRIL 3O

DA N A E M A T T E S Cataract | 2019 | Clay and pigment on canvas | 61 x 60 inches

K AY R YA N Almost Without Surface

Sometimes before going to sleep a person senses the give behind the last given. almost physically, like the strain of plush against a skin. The person imagines a fig or peach, perhaps a woman or a deep constellation: some fathomless fruit. But we are each that, while we live, however much we resist: almost without surface, barely contained. but crazy as clouds compounding each other, refusing to rain.

ED ITI O N 33 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 1

A NN GALE Shawna in Lines | 2016 | Oil on canvas | 44 x 58 inches

JOY H A R JO Remember

Remember the sky that you were born under, know each of the star’s stories. Remember the moon, know who she is. Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the strongest point of time. Remember sundown and the giving away to night. Remember your birth, how your mother struggled to give you form and breath. You are evidence of her life, and her mother’s, and hers. Remember your father. He is your life, also. Remember the earth whose skin you are: red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth brown earth, we are earth. Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them, listen to them. They are alive poems. Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe. Remember you are all people and all people are you. Remember you are this universe and this universe is you. Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you. Remember language comes from this. Remember the dance language is, that life is. Remember.

ED ITI O N 34 – MAY 2

M AY M E K R A T Z Long After the Echo 13 | 2020 | Resin, shells, and snake bones on panel | 40 x 40 inches

M A R Y OL I V E R In Blackwater Woods

Look, the trees are turning their own bodies into pillars

in my lifetime leads back to this: the fires and the black river of loss whose other side

of light, are giving off the rich fragrance of cinnamon and fulfillment,

is salvation, whose meaning none of us will ever know. To live in this world

the long tapers of cattails are bursting and floating away over the blue shoulders

you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it

of the ponds, and every pond, no matter what its name is, is

against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go.

nameless now. Every year everything I have ever learned

ED ITI O N 35 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 5

M IC H A E L K E N N A Poplar Trees, Fucino, Abruzzo; Edition of 25 | 2016 | Silver gelatin print | 7.50 x 7.50 inches

JA N E HIR SH FIELD Three Times My Life Has Opened

Three times my life has opened. Once, into darkness and rain. Once, into what the body carries at all times within it and starts to remember each time it enters the act of love Once, to the fire that holds all. These three were not different. You will recognize what I am saying or you will not. But outside my window all day a maple has stepped from her leaves like a woman in love with winter, dropping the colored silks. Neither are we different in what we know. There is a door. It opens. Then it is closed. But a slip of light stays, like a scrap of unreadable paper left on the floor, or the one red leaf the snow releases in March.

ED ITI O N 3 7 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 7

BE T T Y M E R K E N â&#x20AC;&#x153;Illumination, Redâ&#x20AC;? #02-18-03 | 2018 | Oil monotype on rives BFK paper | 54 x 39.5 inches

T ON Y HOAGL A N D Jet

Sometimes I wish that I was still out on the back porch, drinking jet fuel with the boys, getting louder and louder as the empty cans drop out of our paws like booster rockets falling back to Earth and we soar up into the summer stars. Summer. The big sky river rushes overhead, bearing asteroids and mist, blind fish and old space suits with skeletons inside. On Earth, men celebrate their hairiness and it is good, a way of letting life out of the box, uncapping the bottle to let the effervescence gush through the narrow, usually constricted neck. And now the crickets plug in their appliances in unison, and then the fireflies flash dots and dashes in their grass, like punctuation for the labyrinthine, untrue tales of sex someone is telling in the dark, though no one really hears. We gaze into the night as if remembering the bright unbroken planet we have come from, to which we will never be permitted to return. We are amazed how hurt we are. We would give anything for what we have.

ED ITI O N 38 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 8

A M A N DA M E A NS Water Glass 2, Edition of 10 | 2011 | Silver gelatin print | 32 x 26 inches

S T E P H E N S PE N DE R The Truly Great

I think continually of those who were truly great. Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history Through corridors of light, where the hours are suns, Endless and singing. Whose lovely ambition Was that their lips, still touched with fire, Should tell of the Spirit, clothed from head to foot in song. And who hoarded from the Spring branches The desires falling across their bodies like blossoms. What is precious, is never to forget The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth. Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light Nor its grave evening demand for love. Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit. Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields See how these names are fêted by the waving grass, And by the streamers of white cloud, And whispers of wind in the listening sky. The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre. Born of the sun, they travelled a short while toward the sun, And left the vivid air signed with their honor.

ED ITI O N 39 – MAY 9

S T E P H E N DE S TA E BL E R Winged Figure Ascending, Edition of 4 | 2010 | Bronze | 108 x 32 x 33 inches

M A T T G ON Z A L E Z Your Handwriting

I held the page up close to my face To see the groves and blemishes Crossing paths now for a while Like the lines of your paintings Often repeating a rhythm We inhabit the same neighborhood And curated moments Now we embrace on this folded page The creases and ink show you’ve been here I’ve been there too The breathing on and handling of the paper Without meaning to, no thought given I keep an eye on you So much happiness and loneliness This life It’s hard to fathom, we do it for so often I desire life without hurry Calmness finds me, it could be said Knowing you are close is enough

ED ITI O N 41 – MAY 13

C H A R L E Y BROW N Untitled | 2018 | Oil on pasted canvas | 48 x 36 inches

L OU I S E GL ÜC K Matins

You want to know how I spend my time? I walk the front lawn, pretending to be weeding. On my knees, pulling clumps of clover from the flower beds: in fact I’m looking for courage, for some evidence my life will change, though it takes forever, checking each symbolic leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already the leaves turning, always the sick trees going first, the dying turning brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform their curfew of music. You want to see my hands? As empty now as at the first note. Or was the point always to continue without a sign?

ED ITI O N 42 – MAY 14

ROBE R T K I NGS T ON Echo and Trace | 2019 | Acrylic and enamel on canvas | 60 x 48 inches

OR I A H The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dream for the adventure of being alive. It doesnt interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes.” It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

ED ITI O N 43 – MAY 15

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

A N N W E BE R Happiest Days of Our Lives #35-40 | 2020 | Found cardboard, staples, and polyurethane | 94 x 124 x 9.5 inches

R A BI N DR A N A T H TAG OR E Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times… In life after life, in age after age, forever. My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs, That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms, In life after life, in age after age, forever. Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, its age-old pain, Its ancient tale of being apart or together. As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge, Clad in the light of a pole-star piercing the darkness of time: You become an image of what is remembered forever. You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount. At the heart of time, love of one for another. We have played along side millions of lovers, shared in the same Shy sweetness of meeting, the same distressful tears of farewell— Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever. Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you The love of all man’s days both past and forever: Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life. The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours— And the songs of every poet past and forever.

Translated by William Radice

ED ITI O N 4 4 – MAY 16

A L E X K A N E VS K Y Undine | 2020 | Oil on panel | 36 x 36 inches

JOY H A R JO Perhaps the World Ends Here

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live. The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on. We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it. It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women. At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers. Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table. This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun. Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory. We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here. At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks. Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

ED ITI O N 45 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 18

J I M PH A L E N Fall Still Life | 2017â&#x20AC;&#x201C;18 | Oil on panel | 30 x 40 inches

T HOM A S H A R DY Lines to a Movement in Mozart’s E-Flat Symphony

Show me again the time When in the Junetide’s prime We flew by meads and mountains northerly!— Yea, to such freshness, fairness, fulness, fineness, freeness, Love lures life on. Show me again the day When from the sandy bay We looked together upon the pestered sea!— Yea, to such surging, swaying, sighing, swelling, shrinking, Love lures life on. Show me again the hour When by the pinnacled tower We eyed each other and feared futurity!— Yea, to such bodings, broodings, beatings, blanchings, blessings, Love lures life on. Show me again just this: The moment of that kiss Away from the prancing folk, by the strawberry-tree!— Yea, to such rashness, ratheness, rareness, ripeness, richness, Love lures life on.

ED ITI O N 47 – MAY 21

J AQ C H A R T I E R 27 Tests | 2018 | Acrylic, inks, dyes, stains, and spray paint on wood panel | 11 x 14 inches

K E N N E T H PA T C H E N Fall of the Evening Star

Speak softly; sun going down Out of sight. Come near me now. Dear dying fall of wings as birds Complain against the gathering dark… Exaggerate the green blood in grass; the music of leaves scraping space; Multiply the stillness by one sound; By one syllable of your name… And all that is little is soon giant, All that is rare grows in common beauty To rest with my mouth on your mouth As somewhere a star falls And the earth takes it softly, in natural love… Exactly as we take each other… and go to sleep…

ED ITI O N 4 8 – MAY 22

ROBE R T K I NGS T ON Dogstar | 2019 | Acrylic on canvas | 72 x 60 inches

DE VOR A H M A JOR resisting genocide

everyone is writing poems about George Taylor or Ahmaud Arbery Breonna Taylor or Sandra Bland Emmett Till or Amadou Diallo Trayvon Martin or Oscar Grant Ramarley Graham or Michael Brown or so many others

and as i sit here searching for the right words to pen my mouth is slack tears held back as the litany of words i have already scribed rolls out beneath me

but i have been writing poems about black people murdered in the endlessly declared and undeclared wars of our times

and the only things that seem to have changed are that more are dying,

dying while loved dying while alone dying while afraid dying while besieged by enemy dying while besieged by kin

more black men, more black women more black children ever younger and more innocent full of possibilities that too few seem able to see

i have been writing poems about black people dying for about as long as i have been writing poems

and more are killing each other for reasons even they cannot fully explain unreasoned rage, confusion, frustration and desire

SPECIAL ED ITI O N â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 25

but the center of each of these poems is the same the killing of and death of black people i already have stacks of poems with sharp tipped blades cutting my heart black people are killed without mercy or remorse without fear of penalty one black person every twenty-eight hours falls from a police officer security officer, vigilante while another 8000 die each year from killing each other each of these murders killing our line ending our future

so i write this poem for the living who we need to offer more than cautionary advice say, “yes sir ” on demand keep your hands up and open stay aware and remember you are a hunted target always under siege prejudged as criminal wrong on account of color wrong on account of neighborhood wrong on account of clothes wrong on account of music wrong on account of birth we need to make a way for all of them to stride with their smiles lighting up dark corners as their neighbors watch out for the treasure of their inner beauty and the caprice of their outer style and the endless potential of their precious lives

This poem by Devorah Major was not part of the original Stay Inspired series. It was inserted here to mark the day George Floyd was killed—to honor his memory and to commemorate the countless Black people who have been wrongfully slain before and since his murder. May their deaths inspire the long-awaited shifts in consciousness necessary to bring about real and lasting change.

PA BL O N E RU DA Our Child

Oh child, do you know, do you know where you come from? From a lake with white and hungry sea gulls. Besides the wintry water she and I built a red bonfire wearing away our lips from kissing each otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s souls, throwing everything into the fire, burning up our life. This is the way you arrived in the world. But in order to see me and in order to see you one day she crossed over the seas and in order to embrace her small waist I walked the whole earth, with wars and mountains, with sand and spines.

This is the way you arrived in the world. From so many places you come, from the water and from the earth, from the fire and from the snow, from so far away you walk toward the two of us, from the terrible love that has enchained us, so we want to know what you are like, what you say to us, because you know more about the world than we gave you. Like a great storm the two of us shake the tree of life down to the most hidden fibers of its roots and you appear now, singing in the leaves, on the highest branch we reached with you.

Translated by Perry Higman

ED ITI O N 5O â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 26

L OU I S E L E BOU RGE OI S Light at the Horizon #602 | 2018 | Oil on panel | 36 x 36 inches

R AY MON D C A R V E R Late Fragment

And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

ED ITI O N 51 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; MAY 27

Ã&#x2030; R IC A N T OI N E La Constellation III, Edition of 10 | 2019 | Piezography carbon print | 16 x 20 inches

S TA N L E Y K U N I T Z The Layers

I have walked through many lives, some of them my own, and I am not who I was, though some principle of being abides, from which I struggle not to stray. When I look behind, as I am compelled to look before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey, I see the milestones dwindling toward the horizon and the slow fires trailing from the abandoned camp-sites, over which scavenger angels wheel on heavy wings. Oh, I have made myself a tribe out of my true affections, and my tribe is scattered! How shall the heart be reconciled to its feast of losses? In a rising wind the manic dust of my friends, those who fell along the way, bitterly stings my face. Yet I turn, I turn, exulting somewhat, with my will intact to go wherever I need to go,

and every stone on the road precious to me. In my darkest night, when the moon was covered and I roamed through wreckage, a nimbus-clouded voice directed me: “Live in the layers, not on the litter.” Though I lack the art to decipher it, no doubt the next chapter in my book of transformations is already written. I am not done with my changes.

ED ITI O N 5 4 – MAY 3O

JOH N D I PAOL O Untitled Blue Band #2 | 2020 | Oil on canvas | 63 x 70 inches

L AW R E NC E F E R L I NG H E T T I Recipe for Happiness in Khabarovsk or Anyplace

One grand boulevard with trees with one grand café in sun with strong black coffee in very small cups One not necessarily very beautiful man or woman who loves you One fine day

EDITION 55 – JUNE 2

L I S A RUS S E L L Intonation #320 | 2019 | Oil on canvas | 8 x 6 inches

ROS A R IO C A S T E L L A NOS Nocturne

Time is too long for life; for knowledge not enough. What have we come for, night, heart of night? All we can do is dream, or die, dream that we do not die and, at times, for a moment, wake.

Translated by Magda Bogin

EDITION 56 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JUNE 3

S H E R I Ã&#x2030; F R A NS S E N RUN | 2019 | Oil on canvas | 80 x 70 inches

DAV I D W H Y T E Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired, the world is tired also. When your vision has gone, no part of the world can find you. Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes to recognize its own. There you can be sure you are not beyond love. The dark will be your home tonight. The night will give you a horizon further than you can see. You must learn one thing. The world was made to be free in. Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong. Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

EDITION 57 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JUNE 4

M IC H A E L K E N N A Graveside Statue, Cimitero Monumentale, Milan, Edition of 25 | 2008 | Silver gelatin print | 7.75 x 7.50 inches

DE A N R A DE R Nocturne (Lasciare Sonare)

Sharp shard of another day, another post dawn, another wreckage of dew and dew drop, the whole shellacked as if glass were on the inside of everything, even the air between sky and eyeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; the entire world waiting to crack along its fractures, falling the way the hours fall into their own dispersal.

Suppose inside every prayer is another prayer, within every word another word, an infinite ladder of letters always climbing back into each other, and suppose within every song is another song, inside each note another note, a second sound, a secret sound, and what if within all signs are more signs and inside each line a line of lines, a furrow of lines, a field of lines?

How, we ask, can so much break all at once? Somewhere a fire burns like a star along the edge of what we cannot know, and yet still we rise like the flame of a bent candle into the empty cathedral of our routine. Long day, longer night, the old cul-de-sac of sorrow and silence. We circle around our loss like a shell on a grant of sand. What if just once we were not erased by our own absence? O lost pilgrim, what if your journey begins with this word? What if a song written for you long ago can only now be heard? What if someone whispers your name in her nightly prayer?

I believe we draw and are drawn into the ink of our unlived lives. I believe we are echo and trace, both string and bow. Listen: when the light lays down its knives, and darkness, the weariest maestro, picks up its baton, you will know the music the dead left you has begun. Off in the distance, beyond the choir of cricket-thrum and wind-whir, beyond the triage of traffic slog and the dark drone of device, there is nothing but the past, asleep on its black pillow, and youâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; keep listening: the entire world may go silent, but the little bell of the self is ready to ring.

EDITION 58 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JUNE 5

J A M E S K E N N E DY Thought Form 2404/10 | 2018 | Acrylic polymer on incised eucalyptus masonite | 60 x 60 inches

L OU I S E GL ÜC K Crossroads

My body, now that we will not be traveling together much longer I begin to feel a new tenderness toward you, very raw and unfamiliar Like what I remember of love when I was young— love that was so often foolish in its objectives But never in its choices, its intensities. Too much demanded in advance, too much that could not be promised— My soul has been so fearful, so violent: forgive its brutality. As though it were that soul, my hand moves over you cautiously, not wishing to give offense but eager, finally, to achieve expression as substance: It is not the earth I will miss, It is you I will miss.

EDITION 6O – JUNE 9

T OM L I E BE R Pirouette | 2019 | Oil on canvas | 72 x 60 inches

M A T T H E W Z A PRU DE R Penultimate Poem

Let us walk one more time very slowly to the famous meadow whose name eludes us from there we can see the ghost ship sail off the lake and into the clouds letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s speculate on where it has gone and touch the glass thought animals and talk about the machine that makes nothing matter so totally it will never be different our lives have already changed and now we all have to go back into the city and combine pleasurably or at least well with the day we will walk beneath the huge blue gorgeous corporate windows and know they are glass cases the figurines inside them so carefully painted they are almost completely alive like our parents under the earth their low voices in the kitchen say they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mean anything by it and now like great dead poets they understand us just one more thing no matter how long it seems it has been gone this feeling everything you touch with your mind so beautifully together belongs will keep falling up into your life like airplanes up into the miraculous unremarkable sky over the harbor and its great ships taking their names out to sea

EDITION 63 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JUNE 12

I A N K I M M E R LY Just Visiting | 2020 | Oil on canvas | 50 x 60 inches

J AC K H I R SC H M A N Path

Go to your broken heart. If you think you don’t have one, get one. To get one, be sincere. Learn sincerity of intent by letting life enter, because you’re helpless, really, to do otherwise. Even as you try escaping, let it take you and tear you open like a letter sent, like a sentence inside you’ve waited for all your life though you’ve committed nothing. Let it send you up. Let it break you, heart. Broken-heartedness is the beginning of all real reception. The ear of humility hears beyond the gates. See the gates opening. Feel your hands going akimbo on your hips, your mouth opening like a womb giving birth to your voice for the first time. Go singing whirling into the glory of being ecstatically simple. Write the poem

EDITION 64 – JUNE 13

U DO NÃ&#x2013;GE R Ruhend | 2019 | Mixed media on canvas | 71 x 88 inches

PH I L I P L A R K I N The Mower

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found A hedgehog jammed up against the blades, Killed. It had been in the long grass. I had seen it before, and even fed it, once. Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world Unmendably. Burial was no help: Next morning I got up and it did not. The first day after a death, the new absence Is always the same; we should be careful Of each other, we should be kind While there is still time.

EDITION 65 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JUNE 16

M A T T G ON Z A L E Z After the autumn-waiver, flowersome | 2018 | Found-paper collage | 24 x 18 inches

RU M I The Guest House

This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all! Even if they are a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably. He may be clearing you out for some new delight. The dark thought, the shame, the malice. meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whatever comes. because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.

Translated by Coleman Barks

EDITION 66 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JUNE 17

BI L L A R M S T RONG Unspoken 1508, Edition of 5 | 2016 | Chromogenic print | 40 x 48 inches

DAV I D WA T T S Pause

All day in shelter on a granary floor, rain on the roof like buckshot in branches. Aroma of wet earth, dry grain. The air unhurried and intentional. I have made a chair of hay bales, spread a saddle blanket. Contained womb-like against the heft of the out-of-doors, there is this soft heartbeat of contentment. The dark print of my life outside the walls.

EDITION 67 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JUNE 18

R IC K C H A PM A N Wrapped Hay, England, Edition of 5 | 2000 | Silver gelatin print | 15.50 x 15.50 inches

DE VOR A H M A JOR covid distances

hugs are a greeting of acceptance and humanity hugs are a parting with good wishes for tomorrow hugs for old friends loved ones souls i honor appreciators of my spirit sheltered in place electronics deliver a semblance of companionship there is no grandchild embrace ring-toned conversations punctuate hours of my days there is no daughter touch

hugs replaced with the crown shaped virus shooting out spikes there is no friend caress instead a heated virus aimed at the lungs limiting breath at times extinguishing hearts it flashes its warnings no touch allowed no closeness no hugs speak from behind a mask stay back turn from strangers nod fleetingly to acquaintances do not, whatever you do do not hug i wrap my arms around myself remember i like to hug

EDITION 68 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JUNE 19

E DW IGE F OU V R Y Cyrille assis | 2020 | Oil on canvas | 75 x 75 inches

DAV I D W H Y T E The House of Belonging

I awoke this morning in the gold light turning this way and that thinking for a moment it was one day like any other. But the veil had gone from my darkened heart and I thought it must have been the quiet candlelight that filled my room, it must have been the first easy rhythm with which I breathed myself to sleep,

it must have been the prayer I said speaking to the otherness of the night. And I thought this is the good day you could meet your love, this is the grey day someone close to you could die. This is the day you realize how easily the thread is broken between this world and the next and I found myself sitting up in the quiet pathway of light, the tawny close-grained cedar burning round

EDITION 69 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; JUNE 2O

me like fire and all the angels of this housely heaven ascending through the first roof of light the sun had made. This is the bright home in which I live, this is where I ask my friends to come, this is where I want to love all the things it has taken me so long to learn to love. This is the temple of my adult aloneness and I belong to that aloneness as I belong to my life. There is no house like the house of belonging.

M IC H A E L K E N N A Avenue of the Giants, California, USA; Edition of 25 | 1998 | Silver gelatin print | 7.75 x 7.75 inches

R AY MON D C A R V E R Happiness

So early it’s still almost dark out. I’m near the window with coffee, and the usual early morning stuff that passes for thought. When I see the boy and his friend walking up the road to deliver the newspaper. They wear caps and sweaters, and one boy has a bag over his shoulder. They are so happy they aren’t saying anything, these boys. I think if they could, they would take each other’s arm. It’s early in the morning, and they are doing this thing together. They come on, slowly. The sky is taking on light, though the moon still hangs pale over the water. Such beauty that for a minute death and ambition, even love, doesn’t enter into this. Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.

EDITION 7O – JUNE 23

JOS H UA M E Y E R Parentheses | 2015 | Oil on canvas | 40 x 36 inches

DA N US H A L A M É R I S Small Kindnesses

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here, have my seat,” “Go ahead — you first,” “I like your hat.”

EDITION 71 – JUNE 24

J I M PH A L E N Still Life with Lime | 2017 | Oil on panel | 16 x 20 inches

BR E N DA H I L L M A N [the invisible is full for you]

Days are calm, for some, fox in its closeness X’s the ground,

dawn’s

hushed forms, — rat, deer launch a few vowels; a spare soul

sent out early to be with them:

in the tale, the seventh seal is broken: silence follows; many stopped breathing — last week past comprehension... creation writes in us to be life, snatched from the hand; the invisible is full for you, past lowest mosses; hyaline

sky, wise science, the love fear

passed through

full for you now...

3-24-20 407,485 5-8-20 3,941,371

EDITION 72 – JUNE 25

VA N E S S A M A R S H The Sun Beneath the Sky, Untitled #100 | 2019 | Unique silver gelatin lumen photogram | 20 x 16 inches

M A R K S A N DE R S The Still Life

Now — just at that silent place, between sadness and gratitude, wind-worn balances we all weather — a cardinal leaps from a bare trim limb, its red bloom lingering. The sun down in deepening darkness where night clouds consume it, evanescence of orange and purple. How moment passes, how memory holds. The heart must break if it has ever felt joy. The heart must break because diminished things matter, and having mattered hold, still. You were here. For us. Then break, heart. Your fingers lie upon the pulse of our days.

EDITION 73 – JUNE 26

HOL L I S H E IC H E M E R where the under and over meet 2, #4 | 2018 | Ink and oil paint on mylar | 19 x 12 inches

S T UA R T K E S T E N B AU M Amen

It’s easy to ignore the moment we dwell in the time when we should be our own choir shouting amen to every second that’s given us but we forget and think only of the machinery that’s driving our lives, the idling engines of our day-to-day-to-day, the endless tapping on the keyboards. Or else we’re waiting for something better to come along, some out-of-town engagement better than where we are now. Life isn’t some film we can review again, it’s live theater, and even if we could go back what’s the point? Sitting in the darkened room with the film ticking along and we reverse the projector and see ourselves returning in the car before we’ve ever left walking backwards to our house or leaping out of the water we thought we were swimming in.

ED IT I O N 74 – J U N E 27

M A R S H A L L C ROS S M A N Beach Series #228 | 2017 | Oil on canvas | 16 x 16 inches

RU M I Zero Circle

Be helpless, dumbfounded, Unable to say yes or no. Then a stretcher will come from grace to gather us up. We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty. If we say we can, we’re lying. If we say No, we don’t see it, That No will behead us And shut tight our window onto spirit. So let us rather not be sure of anything, Besides ourselves, and only that, so Miraculous beings come running to help. Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute, We shall be saying finally, With tremendous eloquence, Lead us. When we have totally surrendered to that beauty, We shall be a mighty kindness.

Translated by Coleman Barks

ED I T I O N 7 5 – J U LY 1

JENIFER K ENT Elsewhere | 2020 | Ink on panel | 24 x 24 inches

DE VOR A H M A JOR evening sky while crossing the atlantic

i don’t know the name of the blues that shadow our path one is sweet and light, a cool meringue another sharp, but still a third thick, pressing down upon the rest cerulean they would say of the uppermost a blue that hums deeply a harmony of firmament refusing clouds denying stars shining inside the cosmos a forever blue where life dies and is reborn an eternal blue that exists above the storm a blue that doesn’t suffer discord that would smile if it had mouth embrace it was armed comfort if it grew heart

but instead it arcs a concert of blues hovering over the earth in an endless ocean of impossible quiet thick with blue beyond blue a blue that disappears when held in the mouth clutched in the fist flown through a blue that is invisible and solid we soar above the clouds able to bathe for these moments in the divine majesty of this nameless blue

ED I T I O N 76 – J U LY 4

BE R N A DE T T E J I YONG F R A N K Migrant (Phthalo Blue) | 2018 | Oil and acrylic on panel | 48 x 36 inches

T. S . E L IO T Little Gidding

We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. Through the unknown, unremembered gate When the last of earth left to discover Is that which was the beginning; At the source of the longest river The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between two waves of the sea. Quick now, here, now, always-A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything) And all shall be well and All manner of thing shall be well When the tongues of flames are in-folded Into the crowned knot of fire And the fire and the rose are one

ED I T I O N 7 7 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; J U LY 8

J E N N I F E R P OC H I NS K I North shore | 2020 | Oil on canvas | 60 x 48 inches

BI L LY COL L I NS My Life

Sometimes I see it as a straight line drawn with a pencil and a ruler transecting the circle of the world or as a finger piercing a smoke ring, casual, inquisitive,

Like yours, it could be anything, a nest with one egg, a hallway that leads to a thousand rooms â&#x20AC;&#x201D; whatever happens to float into view when I close my eyes or look out a window for more than a few minutes, so that some days I think it must be everything and nothing at once.

but then the sun will come out or the phone will ring and I will cease to wonder if it is one thing, a large ball of air and memory, or many things, a string of small farming towns, a dark road winding through them. Let us say it is a field I have been hoeing every day, hoeing and singing, then going to sleep in one of its furrows,

But this morning, sitting up in bed, wearing my black sweater and my glasses, the curtains drawn and the windows up, I am a lake, my poem is an empty boat, and my life is the breeze that blows through the whole scene stirring everything it touches â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the surface of the water, the limp sail, even the heavy, leafy trees along the shore.

or now that it is more than half over, a partially open door, rain dripping from the eaves

ED I T I O N 78 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; J U LY 12

L OU I S E L E BOU RGE OI S Land of Water #625 | 2020 | Oil on panel | 36 x 90 inches

DE R E K WA L CO T T Love After Love

The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the otherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.

ED I T I O N 8 O, J U LY 18

A L E X K A N E VS K Y Lulu with her Friend | 2019 | Oil on panel | 18 x 18 inches

HAFIZ With That Moon Language

Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, â&#x20AC;&#x153;Love me.â&#x20AC;? Of course you do not do this out loud; otherwise, someone would call the cops. Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

ED I T I O N 81 , J U LY 2 2

DAV I D K E L SO Influence, Edition of 30 | 1983 | Color hard and soft ground with aquatint, engraving, and burnishing | 30 x 22 inches

L UC I L L E C L I F T ON wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you celebrate with me

wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my one hand holding tight my other hand; come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.

ED I T I O N 82, J U LY 2 5

DA N A E M A T T E S Comet | 2020 | Clay and pigment on canvas | 24 x 24 x 2 inches

C H A R L I E PE N DE RG A S T Shuddering in Place

Scattered around us as if an unexpected wind has just visited with malign fury are the upended chairs and tables of yesterdayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s feasting in the unsuspecting sun. Cups and saucers, a whisky glass, a sweater, whose? Disorder now taunts us and bids us to make new place settings in its midst. We are abandoned by all the neat and tidy history, the comfy tales of our noble heritage, and the (always tentative) hope and conviction that our work and planning would carry us aloft to the soft perch from which we would dim and fade and die in sight of our loved ones faces. Hands entwined in the near comfort of love. Not to be. Our own words have taken a march, and new and sinister meanings have usurped the old: justice, custom, dignity, truth, veneration, respect, have all taken powders, and are on an aimless walk outside our shuddering bodies.

ED I T I O N 8 3 , J U LY 3 O

K A I S A M U E L S - DAV I S The Vessell VIII | 2020 | Oil on panel | 12 x 12 inches

A L IC E WA L K E R Desire

My desire is always the same; wherever Life deposits me: I want to stick my toe & soon my whole body into the water. I want to shake out a fat broom & sweep dried leaves bruised blossoms dead insects & dust. I want to grow something. It seems impossible that desire can sometimes transform into devotion; but this has happened. And that is how Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve survived: how the hole I carefully tended in the garden of my heart grew a heart to fill it.

EDITION 84, AUGUST 1

H U N T R E T T IG Face Shot | 2019 | Polyester film, synthetic rubber, and acrylics | 48 x 60 inches

W E N DE L L BE R R Y The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

EDITION 85, AUGUST 26

B A R B A R A VAUG H N Skinio, Edition of 5 | 2012 | Pigment print on cold press rag paper 340 GSM | 40 x 40 inches

GR E G OR Y OR R This is what was bequeathed us

This is what was bequeathed us: This earth the beloved left And, leaving, Left to us. No other world But this one: Willows and the river And the factory With its black smokestacks. No other shore, only this bank On which the living gather. No meaning but what we find here. No purpose but what we make. That, and the belovedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clear instructions: Turn me into song; sing me awake.

EDITION 86 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; SEPTEMBER 17

A L E X K A N E VS K Y Breakfast on the Grass | 2020 | Oil on linen | 60 x 60 inches

DE A N YOU NG Whale Watch

Sometimes you may feel alone and crushed by what you cannot accomplish but the thought of failure is a fuzz we cannot rid ourselves of anymore than the clouds can their moisture. Why would they want to anyway? It is their identity and purpose above the radish and radicchio fields. Just because a thing can never be finished doesn’t mean it can’t be done. The most vibrant forms are emergent forms. In winter, walk across a frozen lake and listen to it boom and you will know something of what I mean. It may be necessary to go to Mexico. Do not steal tombstones but if you do, do not return them as it is sentimental and the sentimental is a larval feeling that bloats and bloats but never pupates. Learn what you can of the coyote and shark. Do not encourage small children

to play the trombone as the shortness of their arms may prove quite frustrating, imprinting a lifelong aversion to music although in rare cases a sense of unreachability may inspire operas of delicate auras. If you hook, try to slice. I have no the time to fully address Spinoza but put Spinoza on your list. Do not eat algae. When someone across the table has a grain of rice affixed to his nostril, instead of shouting, Hey, you got rice hanging off your face! thereby perturbing the mood as he speaks of his mother one day in the basement, brush your nose as he watches and hidden receptors in the brain will cause him to brush his own nose ergo freeing the stupid-looking-making rice. There is so much to say and shut up about. As regards the ever-present advice-dispensing susurration of the dead, ignore it; they think everyone’s

EDITION 87 – SEPTEMBER 26

going to die. I have seen books with pink slips marking vital passages but this I do not recommend as it makes the book appear foolish like a dog in a sweater. Do not confuse size with scale: the cathedral may be very small, the eyelash monumental. Know yourself to be made mostly of water with a trace of aluminum, a metal commonly used in fuselages. For flying, hollow bones are best or no bones at all as in the honeybee. Do not kill yourself. Do not put the hammer in the crystal carafe except as a performance piece. When you are ready to marry, you will know but if you don’t, don’t worry. The bullfrog never marries, ditto the space shuttle yet each is able to deliver its payload:

i.e. baby bullfrogs and satellites, respectively. When young, fall in and out of love like a window that is open and only about a foot off the ground. Occasionally land in lilacs or roses if you must but remember, the roses have been landed in many times. If you do not surprise yourself, you won’t surprise anyone else. When the yo-yo “sleeps”, give a little tug and it will return unless it has “slept” too long. Haiku should not be stored with sestinas just as one should never randomly mix the liquids and powders beneath the kitchen sink. Sand is both the problem and the solution for the beach. To impress his teacher, Pan-Shan lopped off his own hand, but to the western mind, this seems rather extreme. Neatly typed, on-time themes strongly spelled are generally enough. Some suggest concentrating on one thing

for a whole life but narrowing down seems less alluring than opening up except in the case of the blue pencil with which to make lines on one side of the triangle so it appears to speed through the firmament. Still, someone should read everything Galsworthy wrote. Everyone knows it’s a race but no one’s sure of the finish line. You may want to fall to your knees and beg for forgiveness without knowing precisely for what. You may have a hole in your heart. You may solve the equation but behind it lurks another equation. You may never get what you want and feel like you’re already a ghost and a failed ghost at that, unable to walk through walls. There will be a purple hat. Ice cream. You may almost ruin the wedding. You may try to hang yourself but be saved by a kid come home early from school or you may be that kid who’ll always remember his mother that day in the basement,

how she seemed to know he’d done something wrong before he even knew and already forgave him, the way she hugged him and cried. Nothing escapes damage for long, not the mountain or the sky. You may be unable to say why a certain song makes you cry until it joins the other songs, even the one that’s always going on and is never heard, the one that sings us into being. On the phone, the doctor may tell you to come in. It may rain for three days straight. Already you’ve been forgiven, given permission. Each week, cryptograms come with the funny papers. You’re not alone. You may see a whale.

EDITION 87 – SEPTEMBER 26

A M A N DA M E A NS Light Bulb 3, Edition of 5 | 2018 | Pigment print | 31 x 26 inches

AC K NOW L E DGE M E N T S

This book has no page numbers, just dates. Its journey is marked only by the flow of time. It started with what I thought was a simple, positive message, just a poem and a painting, which I shared with our community via email back in March. I did not know that this single seed would grow into a tree that now has eighty-eight branches. The process of finding poems and pairing them with paintings became a form of therapy for me. Whatever the value of the project as a whole, this act seemed to say “and yet” and “in spite of everything.” It didn’t quell the fear and sadness I felt, but it balanced them with something that was empowering. For that I am grateful. There are so many people to whom I would like to extend deep thanks. I’ll start with my partner, Jürgen, who wrote the introduction to Stay Inspired . We both share a great love for poetry, and reading and searching for poems together, coffee in hand, on the roof as the sun rose is something I won’t forget. It was spring in San Francisco; the skies were clear, and the silence amplified the beauty of the birdsong. After the first email, I received some encouraging responses, and as I tried to figure out what to put in the subject line for the next email, Jürgen suggested Stay Inspired. Only then did I see that this idea could be a larger project, that inspirations could be milestones for the journey we all were on. Six months and eighty-eight pairings later, it has evolved into this book. Sierra Nguyen had only been at the gallery for a few months when the shelter-in-place order was issued, and yet she became my partner for Stay Inspired. The acuity with which she helped me pair an image and a poem was astounding. She helped navigate and manage so much of this process, from formatting the emails to obtaining permissions for the writing. As I was buried in efforts to keep things going for our artists and the gallery, Sierra kept encouraging and nudging me to gather poems for the following week. She was the perfect collaborator for this project. Ryan Graff, thank you for creating this most gorgeous visual record for our artists and poets. The elegance and clarity of vision you have brought to the design are extraordinary. Your patience, persistence, and kindness continually inspire me. It takes a team. Patrick Carpenter, thank you for coming in each week to install our shows and receive and safely ship the art. There is no way I could have kept our monthly exhibitions going without you and your smiling spirit. Melissa Ladiona, Rachelle Agundes, and Frances Malcolm, thank you for your tremendous remote support— in all ways—which kept things successfully on track for our artists and this project. My gratitude is deeper than you can imagine.

SEPTEMBER 26

I want to thank you, Dolby Chadwick Artists, for creating such meaningful and memorable works of art. I feel tremendously lucky to have had you by my sideâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;some of you for almost three decades now. We have created so much together over the years, and I am profoundly grateful for your trust, kindness, and brilliant artistry. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the poets and the exquisite poetry we have been allowed to use in this volume. Your words provided inspiration and solace at a time we could not have needed it more. In order to support our fundraising efforts, those of you who could have allowed us to print your poems or translations without charge, and for that I am deeply grateful, too. None of us will forget the year 2020. Beyond the suffering, many of us have experienced moments of tenderness and kindness. This month, the sun was literally blocked out by ashes; and yet, as I look at the stacks of poetry books lining my stairway, I am reminded of the moments of hope and inspiration along the way.

Lisa Dolby Chadwick September 26, 2020

NO K I D H U NGR Y 100% of the profits from the sales of this volume will be donated to NO KID HUNGRY, a national organization that feeds families and children in need, including those who have been particularly affected by the Covid-19 crisis. Thank you in advance for supporting this worthy organization.

W I DE N I NG C I RC L E S

MARCH 19 Thank you! You made me both laugh and cry. And reminded me what our job is, to counter the darkness with light. Your email yesterday was a jolt to me, stuck in months of severe doldrums. The county had just ordered lockdown. I called my wonderful independent art supply store. They were mandated to close, open for two more hours. I have since forwarded your email blast to others to lift their spirits.

—Micah MARCH 19 Many thanks for this much needed bit of beauty and delight!

—Gary, San Francisco, CA MARCH 21 Thank you so much for the beautiful, inspiring and uplifting art and poetry emails! They truly brighten my day. Please keep them coming.

—Lisa, Boulder, CO MARCH 21 Thankful that you are doing this. You’re sharing a kind of peace—it is one of the most worthwhile acts you can offer our starving community.

—Marshall MARCH 25 A friend of mine alerted me to the beautiful art and poetry that you have put together so thoughtfully. Thank you so much for your efforts and creative talent. I am feeling so blessed to be able to look at the fantastic art. I have been moved and inspired by the poetry. It is just what is needed in this difficult time. We must hold precious the sublime. Thank you again.

—Demetra MARCH 26 Your poems and this particular painting mean so much to me at this stressful time. I have two daughters. One a violinist/violist in NY, victim of the gig-economy there and one who has lived in Ethiopia for 11 years where she’s a hub in the music scene in Addis. She left yesterday to come back here…Hopefully this is the safer choice, and I spent a sleepless night hoping she’d make it to, at least JFK. She just called me so I am sooo relieved.

—Irene

M A RC H 19 – J U LY 24

MARCH 26 Thanks for this lovely painting and lovely poem. A great start to the daunting day.

—Owen MARCH 26 I am only one of probably hundreds of people you have touched by your emails. And surely only one of the many who have responded. Yet each offering speaks so personally, they are unavoidably mine. Thanks so very much for your continuing, thoughtful, gifts.

—Marshall MARCH 28 I just wanted to say I thoroughly appreciate you creating and sending these out. These are otherworldly times, no doubt, but you know what else is otherworldly and not explainable and sometimes seemingly crazy? Art. Thanks for a small spark of beauty in an ugly time. Peace.

—Paul, Mill Valley, CA MARCH 28 Wanted you to know that I appreciate you sending these out. Since I am a city employee I was activated as part of the dept. of public health’s response to the pandemic and am incredibly busy during the week. I find myself looking forward to your Stay Inspired posts. They serve as a much-needed oasis during these crazy times.

—Tim, San Francisco, CA MARCH 29 I love this poem so much...I know it finds me in this very space, and so many of us must feel similar right now. I hope this somewhat nothingness can be a miracle. A reminder of what really matters. I was thinking of you just yesterday when my husband brought me the book Red Bird by Mary Oliver you gave me years ago. I treasure that gift. Thank you for creating this series of art and poetry. I’m thoroughly enjoying it. It helps me practice patience and pause.

—Chris APRIL 3 Thank you so much for providing this poetry visit us everyday. I look forward to seeing the artist’s works and reading their poems. This is such a treat you have provided in these troubling times. To you, I say thank you for providing this creative and connective experience.

—Kathleen

APRIL 4 As the days have gone by since you sent this first message, I have come to find I look forward to each one of these thoughtful postings. They offer such visual and written respite from this crazy thing we find ourselves in. Your combinations are so beautifully composed and I have gone back to them, when I need a break from video conference calls to enjoy the image and calm my brain with the poems. I cannot thank you enough for these. I hope you are staying well and I look forward to visiting the gallery when all of this passes.

—Linda APRIL 8 This poem brought me to tears as it perfectly expresses my feelings for my wife while she is stranded in the Philippines, unable to come home to New York until May. Thank you again for these e-mails. They continue to be a highlight of my day.

—Jeffrey APRIL 9 I wanted to let you know how much I’m enjoying this Art and Poetry series. It’s a very thoughtful and beautiful reminder of the beauty that still exists in the world…Even if I can only see it from my window or computer screen. These allow me a few moments to rise above the uncertainty and ever changing chaos in the world today.

—Dan, San Francisco, CA APRIL 11 I have really been enjoying this Art and Poetry series you’ve been putting together. It’s been hard to keep up with everything happening and everything changing. However, I watch for this email to come in. A morning cup of tea with Mary Oliver is a fabulous way to start the day.

—Kim APRIL 15 Thank you for this beautiful poem. I’m in Paris. We are “confined” and will be for another month. Your poem takes a special meaning during this time.

—Brigitte, Paris, France APRIL 16 I’ve awakened a few times this week feeling so at-sea, disoriented, lonely for our old world. People like you keep us all ticking! Hope you are feeling steady!

—Naomi, San Antonio, TX

APRIL 17 I can’t tell you how uplifting your pairings have been these days. What a good and generous way to share.

—Stephanie APRIL 21 I just want to thank you for your lovely emails with amazing art and poems. To be honest, I’ve never enjoyed poems as much as I have been during this crazy time we live in right now. These emails have been a really nice break from mundane daily activities and inspiration to dig deeper into myself.

—Zaya APRIL 21 My dad died of Covid a week ago. This poem helped me a lot today. Thank you.

—Dean The Greeks have an expression, χωρίς λόγια —horis logia—which means “without words”. This is how I have felt every morning that I awake to your thought-provoking, powerful, inspiring, beautiful pairings of poetry with your artist’s work. In each one, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, which is quite amazing given the ingredients you start with.

—Barbara, Sausalito, CA APRIL 29 Today’s offering is pure inspiration. One of the major gifts of the quarantine are these efforts. I forward them to my friends and we do stay inspired. Thank you for your wonderful example of how to manage this time.

—Marguerite APRIL 29 Thank you so much for your daily affirmations! Life is so strange these days, particular with regards to work! This poem perfectly reminds us how important it is to keep busy, and keep motivated. And being a visual person, seeing something beautiful every day, is its own motivation. We are so lucky to be in this part of the World, with such amazing people in our community.

—Lorissa, Marin County, CA

APRIL 29 My name is Joe and my dear friend P.B. has been sending me your Stay Inspired emails. I cannot begin to tell you how much they mean to me. The poems in particular because I can sit with them and reflect. In this time of uncertainty art can shake you up. I feel like the rug, after I hang it out the window, shaking it against the wall. Ready to meet life’s challenges, with the dirt cleared away, with just the right perspective. Thank you so much for whatever inspired you to give us Stay Inspired. It has inspired me.

—Joe APRIL 3O Inspiring, insightful, sublime. I look forward to these ‘meditations’ each day. Thank you so much for your sensitive curating, as always, and particularly in these exceptional times.

—Elaine, Los Gatos, CA APRIL 3O Your morning emails are so lovely to wake up to, particularly this morning. I woke to the news of a death in my family. It was expected but nevertheless is a difficult pill to swallow for my family. He was a star football player in High School, graduated at the top of his class, joined the service during the Vietnam War and returned home a paraplegic. He was told he wouldn’t survive more than 5 or 10 years. Well 55 years later, he passed away married to his high school sweetheart, a father, a grandfather; travelled the world, and was a very successful executive. This morning the reality of us all aging and how the faces of my family continue to change year after year. Then I opened your poem, my cousin and I spent the last few years working on our family history. We were both very passionate about paying homage to those who came before us. We spoke many times of death and the importance of making all you can of your life and your connection to others. Reading this poem this morning was just the thing I needed to stop and appreciate why we are here and appreciate all that we have… There’s nothing to fear. I value your sweet gesture to hopefully get us all to stop and give thanks for where we are in our lives!

—Geoff, San Francisco, CA APRIL 3O I wanted you to know how inspired I am by your posts. I was particularly touched by yesterday’s poem by Miguel de Unamuno “Throw Yourself Like Seed”; It perfectly described how I was feeling and allowed me to shed a little tear, and then get back on the horse, and back to work!

—Erik, San Francisco, CA M AY 1 A wonderful poem for an old dude like me. Thanks.

—Owen

M AY 5 Really, the poetry is keeping me going.

—Virginia M AY 5 You don’t know me, but I subscribe to your email newsletter. I thank you for these daily inspirations. It seems that each of the poems is exactly what I needed for the day. Last week my husband, a healthy, active guy, had a heart attack. He is recovering but suddenly my world got turned upside down. Today’s poem seemed sent from my Higher Power—especially the last lines. I’m an artist and calligrapher and today those words will find their way into my heart and my work.

—Susan M AY 7 Receiving your emails of poetry and art is like receiving a beautifully wrapped birthday gift. Thank you for bringing such goodness and light to a time that can seem so dark and dreary.

—Paulette, East Greenwich, RI M AY 7 This pairing of images, both actual and imagined, is heartbreakingly beautiful. As image and words resonate back and forth new layers of meaning keep unfolding like ribbons. The last line in Jane’s poem, with its image of the one red leaf in the snow, is stunning.

—Betty, Seattle, WA M AY 7 Thank you for this daily practice of hunting these out, Lisa. I imagine it takes on the feeling of just that: a practice. You contribute to so many days, by offering your own.

—Jane, Mill Valley, CA M AY 1 2 I want to thank you for the wonderful selection of poems and art works you have been posting during these strange times. While life as we know it has unalterably changing around us, these poems have lifted and inspired me.

—Thornton, Melbourne, Australia M AY 2 O All these weeks I have been wanting to thank you for this brilliant way of starting the day. Your daily morsel of beautiful poetry and art makes me even happier.

—Dagmar, San Francisco, CA

M AY 2 8 When I was much younger, I tried to read a poem every day, often one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. These missives of yours have revived that excellent habit. Much appreciated.

—Owen JUNE 1 I can’t tell you how much I’ve appreciated these daily missives to bring poetry back into my life at a time when we’re all in need of some uplifting beauty, but when I, in particular, am facing a surprising number of challenges.

—Katherine JUNE 2 I just wanted to thank you for these beautiful “Stay Inspired” daily emails. I look at/read them every day and I can’t tell you how much they’ve meant to me. They’ve made me remember the beauty in our world at this very difficult time. I share them with my daughter who is a budding artist and they have often been the highlight of my day.

—Erin JUNE 25 I have been given many poems from my good friend T.W. thanks to your daily poetry sharing. It has been a wonderful experience and awakened a true love of poetry that I thought had long gone.

—Sally JUNE 25 You have been inspiring us for 72 days now. I had a multi dimensional feeling of beauty and fresh exhilaration. Thank you again for providing these cultural oases.

—Brooke J U LY 1 I just want to thank you for being such an enduring beacon of light and inspiration in this unprecedented time. I look forward to your email each and every day. Your thoughtful curation has brought spaciousness and hope in a time of turmoil and uncertainty.

—Kathryn, Somerville, MA

J U LY 4 These poems are such a wonder; they allow our day to begin in sweet contemplation of the power of words and how succinctly they are stated while meaning is endless—like a piece of art, the vocabulary tests our core.

—Laurie, San Francisco, CA J U LY 1 8 The worse things get, the more is my appetite and my need for art and poetry. Thanks so much.

—Alex J U LY 2 1 These poems have been such a gift and go appreciated. I don’t know how you have done it, such a commitment. Thank you thank you from a full heart. Whatever you do from here on is pure bonus.

—April, San Francisco, CA J U LY 2 2 Extraordinary, Lisa. Thank you, thank you for these morning gifts. I am confident that you are taking great comfort in these daily offerings, and know that you are providing it too. Great big love to you.

—Eliza, Petaluma, CA J U LY 2 4 I would like to add my grateful thanks to you and your gallery for the Stay Inspired series that you have continued to send out regularly. It has brought a little bit of life into a world that feels sometimes bleak, like being pulled into the dark energies of a black hole. These little poetic reminders, like the Brownian motion that animates small particles, set my mind afloat. They have provided some consolation through the deaths of friends and family. T. S. Eliot said it well…“We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”

—Charlene J U LY 2 4 Thanks so much for the inspiring, uplifting Staying Inspired art and poetry series. All art feeds the soul. And I have not only appreciated this soul-nourishment, but also eagerly awaited each installment. Each Stay Inspired edition calms me, rewards me, and saves me from what Francine Prose and others call doomscrolling. Please know how grateful I am.

—Michael

PE R M I S SIONS

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following for permission to reprint previously published material and to the poets who have allowed us to publish their new and original works for the first time: Wendell Berry, “The Peace of Wild Things,” from The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry, © 1999. Reprinted here with permission of Counterpoint Press, Berkeley, California. Robert Bly, “Things to Think,” © 1997, from Morning Poems, HarperCollins, New York, New York. Reprinted with the permission of the author. Erik Campbell, “The Golden Age of Good Times,” © 2006, appears in Arguments for Stillness, Curbstone Books, Evanston, Illinois. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Raymond Carver, “Happiness,” from All of Us © 1998 by Tess Gallagher. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., a division of Random House LLC. “Late Fragment,” from A New Path to the Waterfall, © 1989. Reprinted here with permission of Grove/Atlantic, New York, New York. Rosario Castellanos, “Nocturne,” © 1988, from The Selected Poems of Rosario Castellanos, translated by Magda Bogin. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org. Paul Celan, “Corona,” translated by Tony Kline from Poets of Modernity, © 2008. www.poetsofmodernity.xyz/index.php William Chene, “Jazz,” © 2017, appears in print for the first time here, with permission of the author. Lucille Clifton, “won’t you celebrate with me,” from The Book of Light, © 1993 by Lucille Clifton. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, Washington. Billy Collins, “My Life” and “This Much I Do Remember,” © 1998, appear in Picnic Lightning, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Reprinted here with permission of the author. E. E. Cummings, “[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in],” from Complete Poems: 1904-1962, © 1952, 1980, 1991. “I thank You God for most this amazing,” from Xaipe, © 1950, 2004. Reprinted here with permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation, New York, New York. T.S. Eliot, excerpt from “Little Gidding” from Four Quartets, © 1942. Reprinted here with permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing, San Diego, California. Rebecca Elson, “Antidotes to Fear of Death,” from A Responsibility to Awe, © 2018. Reprinted here with permission of Carcanet Press, Manchester, United Kingdom. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “Recipe for Happiness in Khabarovsk or Anyplace,” from Endless Life: The Selected Poems, © 1981. Reprinted here with permission of New Directions Publishing, New York, New York. Jack Devorah Major, “A Brief for the Defense,” from Refusing Heaven, © 2005. Reprinted here with permission of Alfred A. Knopf,

an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House. Louise Glück, “Crossroads,” © 2009, appears in A Village Life, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, New York. “Matins,” © 1992, appears in The Wild Iris, Ecco Press, New York, New York. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Matt Gonzalez, “Your Handwriting,” © 2020, appears in print for the first time here, with permission of the author. Hafiz, “With That Moon Language,” translated by Daniel Ladinsky, © 1999, appears in The Gift, Penguin Compass, New York, New York. Reprinted with permission of the translator. Joy Harjo, “Perhaps the World Ends Here,” from The Woman Who Fell From the Sky, © 1996. Reprinted here with permission of W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York. “Remember,” from She Had Some Horses, © 1983. Reprinted with permission of W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York. Seamus Heaney, “Postscript,” from The Spirit Level, © 2014. Reprinted with permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, New York. Brenda Hillman, “A Feeling Right Before the Feeling,” © 2018, previously appeared in 2018 at the Poetry Foundation website. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Jack Hirschman, “Path,” © 2004, appears in I was Born Murdered: Poems by Jack Hirschman, Sore Dove Press, San Francisco, California. Reprinted here with permission of the author. “Sur Ivan O’Roc Arcane,” © 2020, appears in print for the first time here, with permission of the author. Jane Hirshfield, “Three Times My Heart Has Opened,” © 1997, appears in THE LIVES OF THE HEART, Harper Perennial, New York, New York. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Tony Hoagland, “Jet,” from Donkey Gospel, © 1998. “A Color of the Sky,” from What Narcissism Means to Me, © 2003. “Entangle,” from Priest Turned Therapist Treats Fear of God. Originally in The Paris Review #219 (Winter 2016), © 2016, 2018. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC on behalf of Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, Minnesota, www.graywolfpress.org. Philippe Jaccottet, “Distances,” translated by Derek Mahon, from Selected Poems. Translation copyright © by Derek Mahon. Juan Ramón Jiménez, “I Am Not I,” © 1973, from Lorca and Jiménez: Selected Poems, translated by Robert Bly, Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts. Reprinted with the permission of the translator. Stuart Kestenbaum, “Amen,” © 2019, appears in How to Start Over, Deerbrook Editions, Cumberland, Maine. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Stanley Kunitz, “The Layers,” from The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz, © 1978. Reprinted by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, New York, New York. Danusha Laméris, “Small Kindnesses,” © 2020, appears in Bonfire Opera, University of Pittsburgh Press. Reprinted here with permissions from the author. Philip Larkin, “The Mower,” from Collected Poems, © 1988. Reprinted here with permission of Faber and Faber,

London, United Kingdom. Ada Limón, “Instructions on Not Giving Up,” © 2018, from The Carrying: Poems, Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Federico Garcia Lorca, “Juan Ramón Jiménez,” © 1973, from Lorca and Jiménez: Selected Poems, translated by Robert Bly, Beacon Press, Boston, Massachusetts. Reprinted here with permission of the translator. Devorah Major, “covid distances,” © 2020, appears in print for the first time here, with permission of the author. “evening sky while crossing the atlantic,” © 2008, appears in Lightning Strikes I, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, San Francisco, California. Reprinted here with permission of the author. “we are this place,” © 2019, appears in A BRACCIA APERTE, (with arms open), Multimedia Edizione, Baronissi, Italy. Reprinted here with the permission of the author. Czeslaw Milosz, “Gift” and “Awakened,” translated by Robert Hass, © 2001, appear in New & Collected Poems 1931–2001, Penguin Books, New York, New York. Reprinted with permission of the translator. Pablo Neruda, “Sonnet LXXXI: ‘And now you’re mine. Rest with your dream in my dream’,” from 100 Love Sonnets, translated by Stephen Tapscott. Copyright © 1959 by Pablo Neruda and Fundacion Pablo Neruda and © 1986 by the University of Texas Press. Reprinted by permission of the University of Texas Press. Pablo Neruda, “Keeping Quiet,” from Extravagaria, translated by Alastair Reid. Copyright © 1969, 1970, 1972, 1974 by Alastair Reid. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. “Our Child,” translated by Perry Higman, from Love Poems of Spain and Spanish America. Copyright © 1986 by Perry Higman. Reprinted by permission of City Lights Books, www.citylights.com. Naomi Shihab Nye, “Kindness” and “So Much Happiness,” © 1995, appear in Words Under the Words, The Eighth Mountain Press, Portland, Oregon. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese,” from Dream Work, © 1992. Reprinted by permission of Grove/Atlantic, New York, New York. “In Blackwater Woods,” from American Primitive, © 1983 by Mary Oliver. Reprinted with the permission of Little, Brown and Company. Oriah “Mountain Dreamer,” “The Invitation,” © 1999, appears in THE INVITATION, HarperONE, San Francisco, California. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Gregory Orr, “This is what was bequeathed us,” © 2009, appears in How Beautiful the Beloved, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, Washington. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Kenneth Patchen, “Fall of the Evening Star,” from The Collected Poems of Kenneth Patchen, © 1936, 1952. Reprinted here with permission of New Directions Publishing, New York, New York. Charlie Pendergast, “Shuddering in Place,” © 2020, appears in print for the first time here, with permission of the author. Dean Rader, “Nocturne (Lasciare Sonare),” appears simultaneously in Waxwing, © 2019 and as a single edition book with calligraphy by Thomas Ingmire, Scriptorium St. Francis Press, San Francisco, California, 2018. Reprinted here with the permission of the author. Kay Ryan, “Almost without Surface,” © 2004, appears in Poetry Magazine (April 2004). Reprinted here with permission of the author. Rumi, “Today, Like Every Other Day,” from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, © 1995, Harper, New York, New York. Reprinted here with permission of the translator. “Zero Circle,” excerpt from the poem, “There is a Passion in Me,” in Like This, translated by Coleman Barks, Maypop Books, Athens, GA. Reprinted here with permission of the translator. “The Guest House,” from Selected Poems by Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks, © 2004, Penguin Classics, New York,

New York. Reprinted here with permission of the translator. Mark Sanders, “The Still Life,” © 2019, appears in IN A GOOD TIME, WSC Press, Wayne, Nebraska. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Tamsin Smith, “Adagio Cantabile,” © 2020, appears in print for the first time here, with permission of the author. Stephen Spender, “The Truly Great,” from Collected Poems 1928-1953, © 1955. Reprinted with permission of Ed Victor Ltd. Rabindranath Tagore, “Unending Love,” translated by William Radice, from Selected Poems of Rabindranath Tagore, Penguin Classics 1995, New York, New York. Reprinted here with permission of the translator. Tess Taylor, “Song With Wild Plum & Thorn,” © 2020, appears in Rift Zone, Red Hen Press, Pasadena, California. Reprinted here with permission of the author. David Walcott, “Love After Love,” from Collected Poems, 1948-1984, © 1987. Reprinted here with permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, New York. Alice Walker, “Desire,” from The World Will Follow Joy: Turning Madness into Flowers, © 2014. Reprinted here with permission of The New Press, New York, New York. David Watts, “Pause,” © 2017, appears in Having and Keeping, Brick Road Poetry Press, Phenix City, Alabama. Reprinted here with permission of the author. David Whyte, “Sweet Darkness” and “The House of Belonging,” from The House of Belonging, © 1997. Reprinted with the permission of Many Rivers Press. www.davidwhyte.com. Dean Young, “Whale Watch,” © 2002, appears in SKID, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Reprinted here with permission of the author. Matthew Zapruder, “Penultimate Poem,” © 2019, appears in Father’s Day, Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, Washington. Reprinted here with permission of the author.

Published on the occasion of the exhibit STAY INSPIRED • Shelter in Place 2020 December 10, 2020–January 30, 2121 Front & Back Cover: Jenifer Kent, Elsewhere, 2020, Ink on panel, 24 x 24 inches Publication © 2020 Dolby Chadwick Gallery Essays © 2020 Jürgen Möllers All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the artist or publisher, excepting for review and certain other noncommercial uses as permitted by copyright law. ISBN number 978-1-7346881-1-5 First Edition DOLBY CHADWICK GALLERY San Francisco, California www.dolbychadwickgallery.com Design by Ryan Graff Printed in China by Regent Publishing Services