The most famous artist of the 20^th century, Pablo Picasso sparked innovative developments in art from 1900 on.  His rapid assimilation of Post-Impressionism, especially the lessons learned from Paul Cézanne, and his interest in archaic and tribal art led to the invention of Cubism in collaboration with Georges Braque.  Cubism was made possible by diverse currents from Italian Futurism and Dadaism to abstract art from Holland to Russia.  During World War One, Picasso became involved in work for the theater and in a revival of classicism, which enhanced his fame and success and also challenged the directions in which modernism was moving.  Then, his participation in Surrealism reversed the conservative character of his classicism and prepared the way to the complex symbolism and political nature of his response to the Spanish Civil War and World War Two.  In his last decades, he pursued an artistic dialogue with Henri Matisse and worked on personal themes as well as recapitulations of works by his favorite Old Master painters.  These diverse strands in Picasso's career show a mixture of individual genius and responsiveness to his historical and cultural context.  The creative complexity of his art left a legacy affecting generations of modern artists.

--Clark Poling, Professor Emeritus, Art History

Lunch Colloquium Monday November 6

On Monday, November 6, those able to attend the Emeritus College Lunch Colloquium (in person or by webcast) first enjoyed a panoply of poems presented by three very accomplished poets whom we can claim as "among our own," Holly York, Don Saliers, and, of course, "our" poet-in-chief, founder and first Director of the EUEC, Gene Bianchi.  They shared examples of their work for twenty minutes or so each--moving us sometimes to laughter (everything from chuckles to guffaws) and sometimes to tears (really). Then, in the final twenty minutes of our time together, other members of the EUEC stood to share, as well, either poems they'd written themselves or favorites by other poets.

 

In this review of the occasion, we thought we'd print one poem from each of our three primary participants so you can revisit the work at your leisure or, if you missed it on Monday, visit it for the first time. 

 

To begin with, here is a villanelle by Holly York.  What's a villanelle, you ask?  Well, the Wikipedia definition makes plain that it is, among other things, one of the most complex and demanding forms that a poet can adopt:

 

A villanelle . . . is a nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third line of the first tercet repeated alternately until the last stanza, which includes both repeated lines.

 

We think you'll agree that Holly pulls it off--though maybe you had to be there to see her present the poem while brandishing her phone "in the palm of [her]hand" to appreciate it fully.

 

 

 

Screening Distance

Infinity's in the palm of my hand

Distance is nothing but air

Far is made near by a grain of sand

The world is closer than I had planned

It surges in to meet me where

Infinity's in the palm of my hand

Never would I in my dreams command

A tour du monde without leaving my chair

Far is made near by a grain of sand

I don't pretend to understand

As I look and click and Facebook share

Infinity's in the palm of my hand

Still time is ever in demand

Even though here gets mixed with there

Far is made near by a grain of sand

And now I wonder if they should be banned

These screens that draw my constant stare

Infinity's in the palm of my hand

Far is made near by a grain of sand.

Don Saliers shared a very moving poem, also in a very demanding form, though he doesn't know what the form is called and neither do I (Gretchen). If any of you know what it ought to be called, please do let us know.  In the meantime, 'nuff said to say it involves using the final half of each line as the first half of the next line.  Maybe we should just call it a saliers. And let Wikipedia know.  

It's the Silences

I say it's the silences that get me most

Get me most where no defense is mounted

No defense is mounted in days like this

In days like this where conversations once were

Where conversations once were, now the spaces

Now the spaces full of traces and phantom sounds.

But there's music in proximity

In proximity the arms, the face

The arms, the face, the whole body next

The whole body next to me yet

Next to me yet the love that was and is

The love that was and is now altered.

I say it's the music that gets me most

Gets me most together and apart from her

Apart from her I imagine hearing as it was

As it was there was sighing and singing

Singing in the night, sighing at the beauty

Sighing at the beauty lost now begets me

Music and silence, spaces between the notes

Between the notes the lost sound

The lost sound echoing in the imagined ear

The imagined ear hearing what's not recovered

What's not recovered is the perishing love

Perishing love coming back but from silence.

Gene Bianchi was next to share work from his most recent collection of poems, The Hum of It All, signed copies of which were available to us at a table (wo)manned by Gene's wife, Peggy Herrman, at the rear of the room.  As Dana Greene put it in the blurb she wrote for the collection's jacket, "In [these] poems of nature, illness, aging, and every kind of unfixable brokenness one hears a cosmic hum, whittling down belief to heart wood.  It is the hum, the sound of all sounds, the ur-sound, taught by cat and owl, birch and wind which is the inspiration for these wonderful poems." We heard that ur-sound in all Gene presented, including the title poem, printed here:

The Hum of It All

Medieval nuns like Mechthild of Magdeburg

and Julian of Norwich kept cats

in their chilly anchoress cells

to ward off mice, they say,

but I think their felines cuddled them

at night in divine embrace, purring them

into contemplative union and sleep.

So I find it with Siamese Max,

a curmudgeonly sixteen who gives

his brother Tony the fish-eye,

yet the old guy with wonderful purr

is a religious whiz by ignoring

stale theology to plunge into core sound,

drawing me toward the source and sleep.

Lately I've heard that cosmic hum

from my hummingbirds hovering

with patience for my elderly pace

as I replace their bottle of nectar.

They carry the sound of all sounds

even when silent to our weak hearing.

Such meditation is not solipsism, withdrawal

into cozy corners, the world be damned.

It gives us time to slow down, slow walk,

slow eat with monk Thich Nhat Hanh,

to let things penetrate our subtle defenses.

It gives us time to feel deeply the sorrow

and suffering of child soldiers made to tie

bombs around their waists, of girls sold

into slavery, and of those starved

and maimed in continuous war.

It's all part of the greater hum.

I heard it again today in a chorus of cicadas.

You can link to the whole of this new book of poems--and much more--by clicking on bianchibooks.com/hum-of-it-all.htm.  I can tell you, visiting Gene's blog-site on creative aging is almost as interesting as visiting with Gene himself. 

The Colloquium concluded with offerings from others in attendance who had volunteered to share one or two of their own poems or poem by others whom they admire.  Those who presented original work included Don O'Shea, Carey Bynum(whose poem was delivered with great gusto by Brenda), George DeMan, and Linda Hubert.  Delia Nisbet read Giacomo Leopardi's "L'infinito" in both Italian and English translation. And John Bugge wrapped up the session with a heartfelt rendition of Richard Wilbur's wonderful "Love Calls Us to the Things of This World." 

We hope it calls you to our next Lunch Colloquium, too:  Tawni Tidwell on Monday, November 20.  See the promo elsewhere in this newsletter.

--Gretchen Schulz

Don O'Shea

	Brenda Bynum

George DeMan

	Delia Nisbet

Linda Hubert

	John Bugge

New Members

I retired at the end of August, 2017, after 39 years at Emory, the first 15 in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts (ILA) and the last 24 in the Department of History. Prior to coming to Emory, I taught two years at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, and then had a one-year Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities at Harvard University. I was born in Washington DC and grew up there and in Connecticut, Guatemala, and Costa Rica (my father worked in international education mostly building schools in these countries). I went to Swarthmore College, majoring in Political Science, then on to Berkeley in the same field, before deciding that history was more for me. I got my PhD from Brandeis in a History of Ideas program started by Herbert Marcuse. At Emory I taught a wide variety of topics, mostly in the field of twentieth-century European history. My focus both in teaching and research was (and continues to be) modern political and cultural ideologies (Marxism, fascism, liberalism, but also Italian futurism and cultural avant-garde movements in Europe). Recently I have been working on secularization, especially on individual religious crises of belief in the nineteenth century.

In addition to our Atlanta home, my wife and I have a small apartment in New York City where we spend about 100 days a year. I have a passion for the New York art gallery scene and have also become involved in community service work, serving weekly lunches in a soup kitchen. I have long been an avid road bicyclist, and am proud of having completed the Six Gap Ride in North Georgia back in 2003. Currently my stamina level is more conducive to Stone Mountain Park.

My wife is a Regents Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Georgia State, where she still runs a large lab. We have two sons, both happily married, and four grandchildren, two of whom live in Connecticut, the other two in Panama City, Panama. Needless to say, we enjoy visiting them whenever we can.

Clark Lemons, PhD, Professor Emeritus of English, Oxford College

When I arrived, theater at Oxford consisted of two plays a year, directed by me.  Today there are 6 or 7 plays, a tech director, and 2-3 adjuncts teaching Theater Studies, with a search for a tenure-track professor currently underway. 

Oxford College encouraged me to develop interests and skills.  With five years of summer study, I earned an MA in Liberal Studies at St. John's College, created interdisciplinary courses, and learned a good style of teaching; with NEH institutes and hands-on experience I developed theater courses and directed the main stage plays.  I am grateful that Oxford and the University supported me financially and personally in a way that might reflect Emory's motto:  Cor Prudentis Possidebit Scientiam (The Wise Heart Has Knowledge).