Poetry and the 'Blues' at Endicott College

photo courtesy of Stephen Basden

Hopson Commissary

The electric night sky

Shades of royal blue

Yanking and pulling 

with all of its strength

To bring darkness over the world

The blue sky pulling 

with all the same force

The millions of hands

And hand and hands

That so long ago

Sowed harvested

And bled

Over the untainted

Purest fields of white

Cotton

The very same fields

Where the songs of sorrows

Would lull in the stagnant

Sweltering air

Melting off skin

Pooling at feet

Under the brightest sun 

That would only be stifled again

In a few short hours

From fields of pure white 

Erupted the darkest blues..

---Nicole Cadro

Recently I took my students to the exhibit " A Cast of Blues" at the Walter J. Mannien Center for the Arts at Endicott College. They are creative writing students, and they will present their gallery poems on exam day at the college. From what I have heard they were very inspired by the photographs, masks, as well as the video and audio presentation.  The exhibit is at the Heftler Visiting Artist Gallery at the Center. And who knows if I dig the poems--I may send a few to the gallery.  Here is the description of the exhibit:

A celebration of Mississippi’s rich musical heritage, the exhibition features 15 resin-cast masks of blues legends created by artist Sharon McConnell-Dickerson and photographs of performers and juke joints by acclaimed photographer Ken Murphy. Murphy’s photographs are selected from the groundbreaking book Mississippi: State of Blues.The exhibition is fully accessible to all visitors, featuring braille labels and educational materials, a music playlist for gallery use, and a closed-captioned film about the Cast of Blues project.  Experience new technology that transforms two-dimensional photography into three dimensional touchable art.

For more info go to  http://endicott.edu 


**** Many thanks to Kathleen Moore for her lecture and tour of the exhibit and for some of the photos.

photo courtesy of Stephen Basden.



photo courtesy of Stephen Basden