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Thursday, May 04, 2017

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





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