Michael Marshall, Robert Powell of Portfolio Gallery and Dail Chambers are among the 50-plus visual artists who have responded to “Ever-Ready Bank Accounts,” a long poem by Wole Soyinka, Nobel Laureate in Literature from Nigeria. Their work will be displayed one night only, 7-10 p.m. Friday, May 18 at Mad Art Gallery, 2727 So. 12th St. on the southern edge of Soulard, as part of Poetry Scores’ Art Invitational.
“Ever-Ready Bank Accounts” is a poem about poverty and greed that includes imagery of children eating insects, slugs and other vermin for nutrition. Marshall – a north St. Louis native with an MFA from Yale University who chairs the Art Department at the University of Hawaii–Hilo – is contributing a silver point drawing that includes studies of a centipede.
“The large insect has a powerful sting that causes major distress for most people. For my chickens, discovery of a centipede in the yard is a cause for celebration, loud clucking and running throughout the yard in a desperate attempt to keep the prize away from the other birds,” said Marshall, who raises chickens for eggs to feed his family on the Big Island of Hawaii.
“If I could get over my perception – or if I were desperate enough – how would I relate to this insect as food? A reflection inspired by the Soyinka poem.”
In Soyinka’s poem, the famished children await the return of “father forager.” Soyinka is a Yoruba man and father with his own intense family commitments. He wrote “Ever-Ready Bank Accounts” while unjustly incarcerated by the Nigerian government during his nation’s civil war, and the forced separation from his family weighed heavily on his mind and haunts the poems he wrote in prison, which appeared in the 1972 volume Shuttle in the Crypt.
Robert Powell seized upon the poem’s family imagery for his contribution to the art invitational. According to the simple rules Poetry Scores sets for its art shows, each work must be titled using a direct quote from the poem. Powell chose for his title the concluding lines of the poem, “Grandmother arched in pain still shapes – A loaded question mark?”
“I chose this because it fits the theme of my art well,” Powell said: “Grandmother nurturing the children, hoping for a better tomorrow with nothing to hold onto but ‘the Audacity of Hope.’”
For Chambers, it is second nature to make art based on literature. “I attribute my imagination to reading,” she told Nancy Fowler of The Beacon, who reported that Chambers has a quote from poet Nikki Giovanni spanning her studio walls. Even the artist’s daughter Tiggy, short for Antigone, is named for a literary classic, the Sophocles play.
“Wole Soyinka’s writings and concepts have been influencing my artwork for the past six years,” Chambers says. “I look forward to expressing this deep connection in the upcoming Invitational show.”
Marshall, Powell and Chambers are new to the Poetry Scores Art Invitational, an annual event event dating back to 2005 that is going twice-annual this year. Regular contributing Poetry Scores artists with work in the May 18 show include Andrew Torch (who also is guest co-curator), Michael Hoffman, Dana Smith, Tony Renner, Carmelita Nunez, Stefene Russell and Dawn Majors.
The art invitational is also a silent art auction. Poetry Scores will use its portion of the proceeds to release a musical score to Soyinka’s poem that is being composed on commission by bicycle day, a three-man orchestra from Istanbul, Turkey. Onur Karagoz of bicycle day has summarized the theme of Soyinka’s poem as “Embrace mankind! Embrace mankind! Embrace mankind!”
Though Soyinka will not attend the May 18 event in St. Louis, he is participating in the project, which he described to the Alton Telegraph as “a very special celebration of creative collaboration.”
Soyinka will discuss his poem and the Poetry Scores project live on St. Louis radio Monday, May 14. He will provide a live interview to the poetry show on KDHX, “Literature from the Halibut,” 9-10 p.m. next Monday at 88.1 FM and www.kdhx.org.
For more information, visit www.poetryscores.blogspot.com or www.madart.com.
Disclosure: Chris King, American managing editor, is co-founder and creative director of Poetry Scores.
