A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Epilogue

A Poem A Day from the George Hail Library ~ Selected by Maria Horvath: Epilogue
Excerpt:
The Art of Painting inspired the poet Robert Lowell to make a personal observation. In his poem, he seems to be struggling to follow Vermeer’s technique in creating an image. He wants to avoid the static snapshot in favor of the artist’s quiet telling of a story.

EPILOGUE

Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme —
why are they no help to me now
I want to make
something imagined, not recalled?
I hear the noise of my own voice:
The painter’s vision is not a lens,
it trembles to caress the light.
But sometimes everything I write
with the threadbare art of my eye
seems a snapshot,
lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,
heightened from life,
yet paralyzed by fact.
.........