Ars Poetica

“all art is about its own making” — John Currin, artist

So here’s the ode on Vivian Maier, her insignificant upbringing, the menial insignificant job—babysitter, nanny—mother without benefits —her later (insignificant) life alone, salvaged by former charges from the street, and always the Rolleiflex twin-lens extra eye for: shadows, reflections, men in hats, women in furs, grimy children …. She’s the found poem sent to a tiny press in a small town in the continuous Midwest. O women who wove tapestries, O Shakespeare’s sister, O kore who made and carried Keats’s urn.   You can listen to the author reading her poem here.   Diane K. Martin’s poems are forthcoming or have appeared in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Field, Harvard Review, New England Review, Diagram, Diode, and many other journals and anthologies. Her work was included in Best New Poets, has received a Pushcart Special Mention, and won the 2009 poetry prize from Smartish Pace. Her first collection, Conjugated Visits, a National Poetry Series finalist, was published in May 2010 by Dream Horse Press, and a manuscript, Hue and Cry, is seeking a publisher. She lives in West Sonoma County, California, with her photographer husband and her dog.