Stan Rice, who died in 2002, was a visionary painter and a poet with a gift for miniatures—he often noticed the natural eloquence of the smallest things that speak to us.
The Fragment of Statue
How is it
The marble
Fragment
Looks whole.
Full of its power
The lips
And chin of
The feminine
Stone.
Not that the whole
Would not have
Power but
How does the fragment
Flower
At all.
Download the broadside for The Fragment of Statue
Learn more about Red to the Rind
This is a lovely poem that caused me to look up the poet on Wikipedia. How interesting to find that he and Anne, the writer, lived and worked so long together. I was amused to find that Anne was given her father’s name Howard as a first name by her mother and only took the name of Ann on the first day at Catholic school as a girl.
As a poet, I at first wanter to make a change of “the fragment” to “that fragment” in the last stanza. Thinking on it, clearly he is the better poet!
Thanks Knopf!
The poem asks a great, original question. I have such respect for poetic minds.
B. Lynn Goodwin
http://www.writeradvice.com
Author of You Want Me to Do WHAT? Journaling for Caregivers
The marriage of the eye to the hand, as in …
“I think, therefore I do art.” is a process of mindful
creators. This man is doing something neat when he sounds the depths of intent. I can see him gently turning it over in his hands (and thoughts).
Sculptures (3d entities) can’t be faked out as is the custom with paintings. Fascinating.
It’s Like a Gem
in a pocket
from a shore
at the narrow arm
of a dream
Dorothy T. Kiljan
Lovely to see Stan’s poem here. He is one of the half dozen finest poets born in the ’40s. It’s too bad he’s so little known. Thanks to Knopf for helping to change that.