Abstract

Tending Ice Gardens is a collection of poetry based on visual art from a range of cultures (European, Canadian, Asian, and Aboriginal) and time periods. Unlike the traditional take on ekphrastic poetry, I approached this project in the modern mode and refrained from merely describing the piece, but also interpreted, confronted and spoke to the art-object. The selection process for the artwork was primarily aleatoric. The works of art and artefact acted as catalysts, providing the imaginative setting, figures or circumstance for my own imagination to work off. These poems "spin off" visual art, moving beyond the artwork to explore imaginative and emotional possibilities. What holds the poems together in Tending Ice Gardens are themes of love, loss and hope which thread their way throughout the collection. The poems explore emotional experiences: for example, the suffocating affection of a dying aunt and the impossible love between a woman and her married, female lover. The poems include narrative, lyrical and imagistic elements.