Contrary Visions (Scripta Humanistica) - Softcover

Kreiter-Kurylo, Carolyn

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0916379477 ISBN 13: 9780916379476

Publisher: Scripta Humanistica, 1988

Synopsis

Kreiter-Kurylo's poems proclaim the beauty and abundance of this world-of memory, history, art and music, of outcasts and exemplars and the fragile, natural economies they inhabit-and as they do so, quietly they celebrate themselves. They are their own best source of wonder.

About this title

About the Author

Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda (formerly Kreiter-Kurylo) is a poet, painter, sculptor and teacher. She holds two masters degrees and a Ph.D. from George Mason University, where she received the first doctorate presented by the school. Her many awards include three Artist-in-Education grants, an Arts-on-the Road grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts, a Council for Basic Education fellowship award, a Meritorious Educator Award from the Springfield Rotary Club, the Fairfax County Public Schools' Hodgson Award in English, a National Scholastic Teacher Portfolio Award, a VERA Award for her doctoral dissertation, and an Outstanding Scholarship and Service award from George Mason University. In 1992, she was named a Virginia Cultural Laureate for her contributions to American Literature. Her poems and writings appear widely in such magazines and journals as Hispanic Culture Review, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, Mid-American Review, Antioch Review, Passages North, The Journal of Teaching Writing and The Writing Center Journal. She has published three books of poetry, Contrary Visions (under the name, Carolyn Kreiter-Kurylo), Gathering Light, and Death Comes Riding. She has also co-edited a poetry anthology, In a Certain Place. Her paintings have been exhibited throughout Virginia in schools, libraries, nursing and retirements homes, universities, and private art galleries. Reproductions of her paintings and sculpture appear on the covers and pages of her books. Currently, she lives in Burke, Virginia, with her husband, Patricio and their pet, Picatso.

From the Back Cover

"The Concern in these poems with the visual, with how artists see, is obvious and praiseworthy, but what strikes me even more forcefully is the variety of tones and sound effects that are available to this poet, whose ear is as keen as her eye. There is plenty of intelligent pleasure in this collection." --Henry Taylor "Each poem in Contrary Visions is like a painting in an illuminated manuscript, marking not the passage of months, but the progress of the soul toward harmony." --Ai

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"Contrary Visions in the Gallery, White on White"

. . . just a white surface that is simply
a white surface and nothing else.

Piero Manzoni

The child in the paisley frock remembers
the terrible storm, how her father saved
her, how suddenly the white winds came.
Stepping forward, she folds her hands
intently into a gesture of peace
like the dove, before her, darkening
the surface halfway across the canvas.

Beside her, two mystics vow
this is not the coming of light
or white blossoms at the hands of God,
but a ceremonial stone that brings calm
to any man, if only he will embrace it.

Whereas the artist intended nothing
of this, no more than a white surface,
the lilies I remember turn back years,
and I am a small child again,
comprehending the emptiness of white
offerings, their incantations cold
beside the burial ground. I am moved
by this stillness, by the beguiling white
canvas holding just enough light
to enfold this darkness, this grief.

Edition details

• Publisher: Scripta Humanistica
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0916379477
• ISBN 13: 9780916379476
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 102