| Two years ago I delivered photographs
I was assembling for a calendar to my friend and minister, Kathy Timpany.
She looked at me point blank and said, “So you’re a photographer,
huh?” “I am,” I responded. “Well, I’m a poet. Why
don’t we publish a book?” she challenged. I began to submit photographs
to her. To those that moved her, she would bequeath a poem. Behold is a result
of that collaboration.
The prairie is a backdrop out of which
sky and light and color are beheld as their beauty and drama unfold. As the
earth turns into the sun, the images I come upon are there only that instant,
never again to be. It is as if the image floats within the shell of an egg.
Sometimes, I hold my breath hoping it will not shatter. When I walk within
it I know it will soon vanish. Sometimes, it evaporates. But sometimes, I
capture it. Photographing people? Though perhaps as ephemeral as a landscape,
a lock into another’s eyes lasts an eternity. It is instinctive, open,
trusting, and vulnerable. I never ask if I can take someone’s portrait.
And only three times have I been waved away – once in Denmark, in Syria,
and in South Dakota.
When Kathy sees a photographic image,
it becomes a musical score for her. From that score she finds lyrics, story
and meaning. In the end, it is the photographer’s joy to see, but it
is the poet who teaches us the significance of what is seen. Kathy sees the
image of children standing on a threshold and paints them with stories we
all remember from childhood. She inhales what I see and uses words to paint
deeper, more personal, and more universal images.
Whether cowboys or monks, shikaras or
South Dakota bridges, the Taj Mahal or the capital dome in Pierre, the Ganges
or the Missouri, a freckle-faced brother and sister or kadhi-cotton-wrapped
men, whether a yellow splash of Lord Vishnu or a tuba player in New York
with an ace of spades in his bandana, these photographs and their poems celebrate
our mysterious and rich lives and draw us into the community of the human
spirit. |
|
I am a poet. I hear sounds in my
head that express experiences and emotions, and I use words to distill them
into small fragments that can be held and pondered for a few moments at a
time. All my life, I have written poetry to express what clamors to come
out of me and take shape before me so that I can hear and see what I feel.
When I first saw Tom’s photographs,
I knew that he used the eye of his camera in the same way I used words. I
knew that he understood what it meant to encounter the soul of someone or
something. You have to pay very close attention, because brief glimpses of
the magnificence that lies beneath the surface of all life come and go as
if by whim. I knew that mystery and wonderment were the source of his vitality,
as they are mine. When Tom and I began to dream of a book, we first considered
that we would approach it in two ways: Tom would read some of my poems and
see if there were photographs that would illustrate them, and I would look
at his photos and see if there were poems I had written that could become
their captions.
What happened instead is one of the
most satisfying creative processes I have ever experienced. I looked at his
photographs, and they spoke to me as if they had a voice of their own. A
tree in the mist spoke of marriage. Children told me what was on their hearts.
Cultures crossed and melded together as a gathering of merchants in India
spoke in the voices of Norwegian immigrants in Dakota Territory. Cowpokes
sang songs as they clip-clopped along under the wide western sky. Sprays
and vapors of water sang of sorrow and transcendence. Light spoke for itself,
and there were almost no words sufficient to translate its lessons. In most
cases, the poems that accompany the photographs were written after sitting
and letting them speak to me. I simply took dictation in the end. But in
a few cases, a poem that I had already written seemed to fit itself to
Tom’s work, even though he would tell you that until he read what I
had written, he had never thought of his photograph quite in that way before.
We invite you to immerse yourself in
our work and see if something happens to you that will allow you the same,
deep pleasure that we have known in creating this book. We hope to encourage
you to see and hear something that has been there all along, but that you
have not noticed before. And when you do, we would be delighted if you would
find your own form to express in some small way the magnificence of the world
that is our common home. |
