Photos of Recommendation: Thumbs-Up Mandala (Literary Week!): Larry Woiwode

Photos of Recommendation: Thumbs-Up Mandala (Literary Week!): Larry Woiwode, originally uploaded by Bromirski.

This is Larry Woiwode.

I chose a poem from his collection Even Tide and asked Larry if he'd write it on my painting. In this picture you can see Larry holding the book and transcribing the poem. He changed it a little bit from book to painting; the original poem was written about twenty-five years before the transcription. I'm very thankful to Larry Woiwode. Below is the poem taken from the book, tomorrow I'll post an update showing how it was edited for the painting.

I stared the stars in the face for an answer
And the moon appeared – it was no apparition,
The gold round host
In a cold sky.
It spoke:

Dark is nearer my heart than light;
I arrived, as you, out of equal circumstance,
And I, as you, reveal myself at night.
You see death has taken my face
And ages before the rest but my eye
Looking down wondering why you tremble
When you contend only with her or a her and I
With the irresuscitability of myself,
Myself, myself, and this – ambiguous sky.

BONUS!: this is the same painting Jonathan Franzen posed with earlier. Here's the finished painting.

UPDATE 7/11/2005: the last line is the only thing different on my painting, he omitted the word "ambiguous".