The Dereliction of Time - Poetry/Photography Collaboration by @raj808 & @soyrosa

A few weeks ago soyrosa mentioned that she might like to do an artistic collaboration between her photography and some form of creative writing at steemfest 3. I can't quite remember if poetry was mentioned then, but I remember that I was quick to agree that it was a fantastic idea. I've always loved Ekphrastic Poetry, defined as:

Having previously discovered this well-spring of creativity in response to both classical art and architecture in 'The Ancient Chapel of Toxteth' & 'A Poet's Muse - The Girandola', I was keen to see how this would translate to photography. So, as I had been tasked to write about a collaboration with a fellow steemian for my monthly sndbox assignment, I asked Rosa if she'd like to collaborate sooner, and she kindly agreed.

After brainstorming on discord, we decided to produce two collaboration posts. In the first, Rosa would give me a series of pictures which I would write an Ekphrastic poem in response to, in the second I would write a poem which she would respond to with photography. The general idea was to bounce off each other's creativity and reflect upon the results on our blogs. This is the first post where I respond to a set of pictures and I was blown away by the inspiration that flowed from the series of photographs.

Here is the poem I produced which I feel it is important to present before I talk about my thoughts behind the inspiration and writing process.

It is usually a little difficult to nail down where the inspiration for poetry comes from but in this case the pictures provided a strong visual framework which quickly translated into an organised structure.

I started with noting down the feelings/themes that the pictures elicited in me.

Which, coupled with looking at the pictures, inspired certain emotional responses and associations. It is hard to explain, a strong feeling of something that doesn’t have a word in English best expressed by the Portuguese word Saudade.

The recent passing away of both my grandparents and their increasing ambivalence to the changing world as they grew older, struck me as a kind of dereliction, a friction between the contradictions of what was and what is now. I witnessed this in both my grandparents and it was heartbreaking to see as the confusion and anger soured their final years. The faded newspaper, paint flecked walls and dusty door in the pictures all inspired these associations. This thought process led to the idea of the dereliction of time and the poems title.

It was at this point that I started to remember some of the things my grandmother used to say. I noted one of them down in my notepad; I once heard my grandmother say “Anything for a quiet life” along with a hastily scrawled idea for a title The house that life built and then fired up Microsoft Word and followed the flow of these themes/ideas.

As I wrote each verse, I looked at each picture in sequence trying to incorporate the visual elements into the flow of the narrative. I had my structure set with the repeated opening lines and although these are not all real things my grandmother said (verbatim), three of the six come from memories of her and the line in the first verse is something she said often.

The poem ended up as rather a dark reflection of my feelings toward watching the inevitable decay of times passing. It is clear to my mind that a certain amount of this poem is my personal response to the death of loved ones. However, it wasn’t particularly painful or cathartic to write which is why I felt it was a decent, balanced poem.

This first creative free-flow, the first draft, was only the beginning. I rarely write a poem in one draft and like most it took a few more edits to tighten up the imagery and the continuity of the narrative.

First off, I want to say, this poem wouldn't exist without soyrosa's amazingly rich and powerful photos! One of the things I learned is that poetry in response to photography produces deep and inspired work. This is in direct correlation to the ability of the photographer (artist) in capturing something more than just a dusty window or a paint-flecked wall. The poem I wrote reflects soyrosa's ability to capture more than the eye would with the lens of her camera. To capture the essence/emotion of a place through composition and perspective. So...

She has already written a companion post to this one which details the process from her perspective and it was extremely interesting to read how her experience compared to mine. I recommend everyone check out her post: Art collaboration: Photography by soyrosa & Poetry by raj808 you won't be disappointed.

Thanks for agreeing to this collaboration Rosa, I think round one has been really interesting and look forward to continuing this experiment soon when you get back from your road trip 🙂