Sam Beam of Iron and Wine

Issue #175 | August 5, 2009

Features
Artist of the Month: Franz Wright
Glen Workshop: East Coast Edition?
Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods by Paula Bohince
Iron & Wine: Around the Well
I Heard God Talking To Me by Elizabeth Spires

Gallery Watch
Axis Mundi: New Works by Emil Robinson

Message Board
Faith in the Halls of Learning

ImageNews
Image Readings: Ann McCutchan
The 2009 Florence Seminar
Subscribe to Image in Print

Features

Artist of the Month: Franz Wright

Franz Wright’s poetry distills suffering, doubt, and desire into a stripped-down style that is both austere and hopeful. But a patient reading of his work reveals that Wright’s frank confessions of need and failure are anything but “confessional.” Rather, his short lines and plain diction set his own precarious consciousness against the larger canvas of a transcendent order. As with many of the best miniaturists, Wright achieves a paradoxical impression of monumentality—like a Vermeer painting that is quite small on the museum wall but feels as if it should be much larger. To say that he’s been to the school of hard knocks would be an understatement—he’s got a Ph.D. from that particular institution. But he has emerged from the worst of it with a tone that is close to that of the penitential Psalms—as in the phrase from Psalm 51 that suddenly breaks into his poem “Reunion”: “My sin is always before me.” Later in that poem he remarks: “what lies / before me is my past.” Perhaps it is because he has been given the grace of survival—of a recovery guided by an uncertain but sincere faith—that he can perceive “appalling and incomprehensible mercy” at the heart of things. There have been cynics who seemingly cannot abide Wright’s sincerity, but many, many more have felt themselves moved by his honest rendering of the soul’s regrets and fragile hopes. His confessions are closer to Augustine than to Ginsberg, addressed as they are to a presence whose love is appalling and indefatigable.

To go to Franz Wright’s Artist of the Month page, click here.

Glen Workshop: “East Coast Edition”?

Over the last fifteen years, Image’s weeklong Glen Workshop program in Santa Fe, New Mexico has grown into a rich experience that attracts both new and frequent attendees who come back year after year. The workshops run by world-class faculty, the strong feeling of community that grows among attendees, the beauty of New Mexico, and all the vibrant lectures, readings, concerts, and worship services at the Glen have contributed to its growing popularity. And as many of you know, the Glen now tends to fill up quickly, leaving many to sit on waitlists as early as January. In fact, the Image staff has just returned from our biggest Glen yet. With that in mind, we have been considering adding another weeklong Glen Workshop to our programs—perhaps on the East Coast in order to reach those who haven’t been able to make it out to Santa Fe. This is both an exciting and a daunting prospect given the small size of our staff, but we’d like to look into the idea. And we need your help! Because we spare no effort in trying to make the Glen Workshop affordable (and are always seeking scholarship funding), the cornerstone to planning such an event is finding a venue with reasonable room and board rates. A college campus, like that of St. John’s in Santa Fe, is one logical choice for a venue, but there may be others, including retreat centers, etc. Other items on our venue wish list include: great natural beauty; good food service; proximity to major population centers; a quiet, retreat-like atmosphere; excellent facilities for those working in the visual arts; and room to accommodate between 100 and 200 attendees. Do you know of such a place, on the East Coast or elsewhere? If so, we’d love to hear from you.

To share your suggestions with us, send an e-mail to GlenWorkshop@imagejournal.org. Please be patient as it may take some time for us to respond. And thanks for taking the time to offer your suggestions!

Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods by Paula Bohince

Memory, tragedy, and grief are hardly original themes in poetry, but Paula Bohince makes them feel new in her debut collection, Incident at the Edge of Bayonet Woods. As the title suggests, a mystery involving a violent “incident” lies at the heart of the book. In fact, as is becoming more common among contemporary volumes of poetry, each piece works together to form an overarching narrative, so the collection is most effective read beginning to end. This form works well due largely to the distinct voice of Bohince’s female narrator, who as a child resides on a failing Pennsylvania farm with her father, and returns to it, haunted, as an adult. The reader is given only clues, glimpses, and moving pieces of exactly what happened to the daughter between these times, the scenes shimmering and shifting in the unreliable way of memory. At some points, the narrator questions her own recollections: “And though I can still see pretty hooves lifting / feel the purchase of the nozzle / firing fresh water, / I must have dreamt it… / if there were deer, wouldn’t they have leapt over?” Besides this honest probing into the dark, the other unfailing characteristics of the narrator are her dry-eyed constitution and reliance on experiences within the natural world. While poem titles such as “The Apostles,” “The Fish of Galilee,” and “The Gospel According to John” signify a familiarity with New Testament texts, the speaker never lapses into a sentimental or too-easy reconciliation of tragedy and a benevolent God. She never overtly mentions this tension at all, choosing instead to illustrate it in vivid natural description, such as in “Brutally, The Robin”: “His eyes are black-rimmed, his fluted bones / could lift if they wanted. / But where, at this late hour? To what embassy? / He belongs to the void now, that prairie, / and is starving, I said.” Veteran poetry readers will be delighted with Bohince’s stark images, unflinching observations, and rich language, while those who normally gravitate towards prose will find this collection a welcome example of how a group of poems can embody a compelling story.

Click here to buy the book.

Iron and Wine: Around the Well

As fans anticipate the official followup to Iron and Wine’s last album (The Shepherd’s Dog) due out next spring, Sub Pop records has just released a satisfying double-disc collection of previously unreleased Iron and Wine songs and rare covers. Disc One of Around the Well was produced by Iron and Wine's own Samuel Beam, containing home recordings that feature his characteristically hushed vocals accompanied by acoustic banjo and guitar. Tracks on this disc range from the soft, uplifting harmonies of “Morning” to the quietly poignant “Swans and the Swimming,” “Hickory,” and one of Iron and Wine’s earliest songs, “Sacred Vision.” In these tracks Beam tells stories and relives intimate moments, but his lyrics have a way of creating an atmosphere of meaning without being literally descriptive—in short, they hold specificity and mystery in a delicate balance. In “Hickory” he sings, “She kissed him once cause he gave her a cigarette / then turned around but he waits like a turned down bed / and summer left like her walking with another and the sound of the church bell ringing / the money came and he died like a butterfly / a buried star in the haze of the city lights.” Both discs feature cover songs that Beam delivers with impeccable resonance, especially Stereolab’s “Peng! 33,” in which he coos some of the most unambiguously hopeful lyrics imaginable: “Incredible things are happening in the world.” The second disc, produced by Brian Deck, features a wider variety of songs and represents a collaborative effort with other musicians and engineers. Highlights include the seemingly gospel-influenced “Kingdom of the Animals,” an almost devotional “The Trapeze Swinger,” “Belated Promise Ring” (a love song of sorts that was written for the film In Good Company), and a catchy cover of New Order’s “Love Vigilantes.” Several of these tracks showcase Iron and Wine’s capacity for what might be deemed, simply, cheerfulness: these songs have a slightly quicker tempo and feature more robust vocals. As a whole, Around the Well offers a well-rounded sampling of Iron and Wine’s oeuvre, both because it collects songs from throughout Samuel Beam's career and because it demonstrates the full range of his musical capacity.

Click here for more.

I Heard God Talking To Me by Elizabeth Spires

Sculptor William Edmondson, the son of former slaves and a lifelong janitor, had no dreams of grandeur. He just knew he was doing “the Lord’s work,” carving first tombstones, then animals and people out of cheap limestone during the Great Depression. But in I Heard God Talking To Me: William Edmondson and His Stone Carvings , a collection of poems inspired by Edmonson and his work, Elizabeth Spires draws the stories out of these sculptures like the artist himself fashioning humanity out of rock. In the black and white photographs, Edmondson’s stocky stone people demand attention with their powerful presence, yet many of them are seated quietly or standing still, brimming with potential energy rather than motion. “Po’ch Ladies” portrays two women just sitting on a veranda, their bodies so sunken into the porch swing that their bellies have all but disappeared, defying the “rush and bustle” of other places with a molasses-like inertia. In another sculpture, a woman holding a hat becomes a spinster awaiting her suitor, who has given her his hat “as good as an engagement ring.” One block of stone wishes, “Make me a girl... A girl with a space of quiet around her, / a girl with time to dream her dreams.” With frank simplicity, Spires reveals the likeness of the Creator in the humble man. “Something is missing here,” Old Will muses after carving a turtle, like God in the Garden before fashioning Eve, and he promptly makes a young turtle for a companion. In Spires’s poems, the stones who cry out “Who made me?” to the universe receive their answer from the stars, and Edmondson’s front yard, a microcosm of the greater world, is not a clutter of broken rocks or even a mass of lonely tombstones but a menagerie of creatures dearly beloved by the one who set them free.

Click here to buy the book.

Gallery Watch

Axis Mundi: New Works by Emil Robinson

The Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati introduced its annual Keystone Contemporary series on July 31 with Axis Mundi: New Works by Emil Robinson, an exhibit of work by painter Emil Robinson. His paintings are meditations that probe beneath the surface of ordinary life in order to reveal unexpected beauty. Robinson’s new paintings exhibited at the Taft also explore the tension between realism and geometric pattern, as he sets carefully created realistic human forms against geometric backgrounds. This new work invites the viewer to consider a contrast of form and pattern with lifelike representations of the body. Robinson paints in his East Walnut Hills studio and teaches at the University of Cincinnati and at Manifest Creative Research Gallery and Drawing Center. His work is represented in such venues as the Heike Pickett Gallery, Versailles, Kentucky; Gallery Henoch, New York; and Waterhouse & Dodd Contemporary, London. The show runs through October 18, 2009.

Click here for more information.

Message Board
Post here to reach thousands of readers interested in the intersection of art and faith. We welcome messages about job listings, local events, conferences, prizes, calls for papers, and more. Submit your messages by sending an e-mail here.

Faith in the Halls of Learning: Finding, Sustaining, and Communicating Faith in a Secular University Community

Higher education poses a great dilemma for Christian students and their parents. Although Christian colleges offer an excellent alternative for some Christian families, most Christian students are educated at large research universities. These "secular" universities pose their own challenges to faith, and research shows that many students stop practicing their faith during their college years. How should we understand and address this problem? In recent years, a number of Christian Study Centers have been founded at secular universities. These are solidly evangelical organizations that deal with the intellectual challenges of university life directly. Rather than compartmentalizing faith apart from learning, which is a great temptation, study centers are committed to "thinking Christianly" about the implications of the gospel for all areas of life and learning. On Sunday, August 9 at 7:00 p.m. Karl E. Johnson of the Chesterton House will present a talk at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Issaquah, WA entitled “Faith in the Halls of Learning: Finding, Sustaining, and Communicating Faith in a Secular University Community.” The talk will address the challenges of being a Christian student at a secular university and the ways in which one study center—Chesterton House at Cornell—has attempted to address those challenges. For more information, click here.

ImageNews — The Scoop on Our Programs

Image Readings: Ann McCutchan

Ann McCutchan’s personal essays about the role of music in her life go behind the typical “liner note” style of music writing to something far more elemental, primitive, bodily—and, hence, spiritual. As a clarinetist, McCutchan has learned how music can be a spiritual as well as artistic discipline. She celebrates the beauty of music (as well as the human mind and body), interrogates her own life to discover the path she's been walking, and bears witness to the presence of mystery. That makes her a triple threat. Click here to listen.

The 2009 Florence Seminar
What a Thing is Man? The Christian Humanism of Michelangelo  

On September 13-20, 2009, Image will gather a small group of inquirers in Florence and Rome to explore the life and achievements of the sculptor, painter, architect, and poet, Michelangelo Buonarroti. In his works we see the dignity of humanity and its fall, the emergence of the individual and the dangers of individualism, and a fierce struggle to harmonize beauty with goodness and truth. Yet for all the conflict and tension in his work, Michelangelo left us with exquisite images of how God's grace can transform human experience. In Image's twentieth anniversary year, we'll return to Italy to explore how Michelangelo's incarnational vision can inform our own efforts to continue bringing about cultural transformation in our time. Our week together in Italy will begin with a couple days in Rome, where we will visit the Vatican and other sites associated with Michelangelo. The remainder of the week will be spent in Florence, where we will visit the great churches and museums featuring the artist and enjoy exquisite meals at restaurants in the city and the surrounding area. If you're interested, visit the Florence Seminar page or contact Julie Mullins here to request a PDF or hard copy of the brochure.

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