Yuko Otomo: MONDRIAN / FLOWERS (AFTER STEVE)

Piet Mondrian: Broadway Boogie Woogie, 1942-43
oil on canvas, MoMA, NY
photo Mark Harden
(http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/mondrian/)

MONDRIAN / FLOWERS (AFTER STEVE)

a painter must have
lent his ears
to a breath of flowers

(http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/catalog/online-reading/small-poems-by-yuko-otomo/)

(Yuko Otomo)

(Steve Dalachinsky)

Yuko Otomo: MUSE (FOR STEVE DALACHINSKY)

Yuko & Steve
(whoever comes first)
(http://www.issueprojectroom.org/2009/04/)

MUSE

they use Nietzsche for beer
Beethoven for shoes
soon they will use you, Steve,
for a cooking pot

(http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/catalog/online-reading/small-poems-by-yuko-otomo/)

(Yuko Otomo)

(Steve Dalachinsky)

Yuko Otomo: GARDEN (FOR ISAMU NOGUCHI)

Isamu Noguchi - Shodo Shima Stone Study, 1976
Minneapolis Walker Art Center
(see also http://updateslive.blogspot.com/2008/06/noguchi-shodo-shima-stone-study.html)

I like to think of gardens as sculpturing of space: a beginning, and a grouping to another level of sculptural experience and use: a total sculpture space experience beyond individual sculptures.

(Isamu Noguchi)

GARDEN (FOR ISAMU NOGUCHI)

a boy is born
of a swimmer
& a poet

he hears nature's voice
in a perfectly split ripened peach
& dictates sounds of a brook

a dead bird cannot scare him
for he sees all

(Yuko Otomo)

(Yuko Otomo)

(Isamu Noguchi)

Yuko Otomo: NIYABI

my thoughts escape to nowhere
as I stand on this shore-
no peach flowers, but roses
to recite somebody else's old poem

(http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/catalog/online-reading/small-poems-by-yuko-otomo/)

(Yuko Otomo)

Yuko Otomo: SPRING SNOW (CE-PHA-LO-PHORE)

Snowy décollement
photo: Collan Bentley
(http://blogs.agu.org/mountainbeltway/2010/02/24/snowy-decollement/)

a house cat is watching
spring snow
through a glass window

on the wall
a headless man is running
thinking, carrying his far-sighted forest
brain

at my feet
an ancient grain is swimming
in a pool of melancholy

and

there is not so much day time left

(http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/catalog/online-reading/small-poems-by-yuko-otomo/)

(Yuko Otomo)

Yuko Otomo: Even Loop Poem

(http://www.homescaninspection.com/is-the-snow-melting-off-your-roof-too-quuickly/)

snow was even
on the roof

even color

the surface must be
perfectly even

even as
even so

(http://www.uglyducklingpresse.org/catalog/online-reading/small-poems-by-yuko-otomo/)

(Yuko Otomo)

Yuko Otomo

(http://www.bigbridge.org/BB14/BIO3.HTM)

Yuko Otomo is a bilingual poet (Japanese and English) and a visual artist (in pursuit of Pure Abstraction). She writes haiku, art criticism and essays (http://www.bigbridge.org/BB14/BIO3.HTM). I had the pleasure to meet her several times, and I would say she is the way her poetry is: smart, subtle and gracious.

• Spring Snow
• Even Loop Poem
• Niyabi
• Garden (for Isamu Noguchi)
• Muse (for Steve Dalachinsky)
• Mondrian / Flowers (after Steve)

(A Life in Books)