The Silver Range
I am coordinating a new research working group through the American University Humanities Lab. We meet once a month to read contemporary experimental poetry, and discuss the changes in reading practices and critical approach such poetry requires.
You can find more about the group and our current readings on our group website. Click below:
Our group name comes from a line in Frank O’Hara’s poem, “Digression On Number 1, 1948.” The poem refers to a painting by Jackson Pollock, titled Number 1, 1948.
Here is the poem!
Frank O’Hara
Digression On Number 1, 1948
I am ill today but I am not
too ill. I am not ill at all.
It is a perfect day, warm
for winter, cold for fall.
A fine day for seeing. I see
ceramics, during lunch hour, by
Miro, and I see the sea by Leger;
light, complicated Metzingers
and a rude awakening by Brauner,
a little table by Picasso, pink.
I am tired today but I am not
too tired. I am not tired at all.
There is the Pollock, white, harm
will not fall, his perfect hand
and the many short voyages. They’ll
never fence the silver range.
Stars are out and there is sea
enough beneath the glistening earth
to bear me toward the future
which is not so dark. I see.