{"id":8923,"date":"2020-02-07T14:54:53","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T19:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/?p=8923"},"modified":"2020-02-07T14:57:46","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T19:57:46","slug":"in-plain-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/in-plain-air\/","title":{"rendered":"In Plain Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Elizabeth Poliner, associate professor of English and director of the Jackson Center for Creative Writing<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Leaves\"The day was already
\nbrilliant: sky
\nswept clean, air
\ncharged with the cinnamon
\nscents of late October.
\nYet in this elm\u2014
\nablaze with color,
\nbacklit by a low-lying sun\u2014
\nI was sure I’d found it:
\na little perfection.
\nAnd then what?
\nOnce you’ve seen it
\nwhat do you do?
\nWeep? Run along
\nas if nothing has happened,
\nas if you could go on?<\/p>\n

A painter I know
\ngets up early,
\na whole day’s looking
\nahead of him.
\nHe sees perfection,
\nnatural and obvious,
\nall day, each day.
\n“Sometimes,” he says,
\n“the tension’s too much.”
\nAnd about that tree:
\n“You can’t paint a fall tree
\nwhen it’s glowing!
\nYou settle
\nfor smaller:
\nthis backyard
\nor my garage
\nor the neighbor’s laundry
\ndrying on the line.
\nMaybe your face,
\nmaybe.”<\/p>\n

He gestures
\ntoward the back steps,
\nangled with wear;
\nthe fall garden, cosmos
\nstill wildly in bloom;
\nthe tilting, makeshift
\npicnic table; his tenant’s
\nmotorcycle, flickers
\nof red and silver.
\nHe says, “Some days
\nI could die from it,”
\nas, words failing,
\nhe points at the air,
\nthen at the light
\nin the air,
\nas good a way as any
\nto embrace it\u2014
\nperfect light,
\nplain air.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Plain Air,\u201d by Elizabeth Poliner, from <\/em>What You Know in Your Hands, (C) 2015 WordTech Communications LLC, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Elizabeth\u201cI wrote this poem in the midst of an autumn in Washington, D.C. My neighborhood there, just off Connecticut Avenue in the upper Northwest section of the city, was filled with old, beautiful trees that I had the pleasure to observe as I took daily walks. The look of the trees often took my breath away, but this was especially so in the fall. I was close friends then with a visual artist, a landscape painter, and upon telling him about one particularly lovely tree he seemed to know just what I was feeling\u2014a little undone by the beauty\u2014and this poem ultimately came of our talk. The poem reminds me of many wonderful (and often funny) talks with this talented artist, and of how enriching a friendship between a painter and writer can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014Elizabeth Poliner<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Poliner\u2019s novel\u00a0As Close to Us as Breathing<\/em> won the 2017 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. In May 2017, the book was named a finalist for the 2017 Library of Virginia People\u2019s Choice Award. It was selected as one of Amazon\u2019s Top 100 Editors\u2019 Picks for 2016 and was an Amazon Spotlight Pick in Fiction for March of that year. Poliner is also the author of Mutual Life & Casualty<\/em>, a novel in stories. She was a finalist for the 2019 Nelson Algren Short Story Award for \u201cSabelle,\u201d published in the\u00a0Chicago Tribune <\/em>on\u00a0<\/em>July 20, 2019.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Elizabeth Poliner, associate professor of English and director of the Jackson Center for Creative Writing The day was already brilliant: sky swept clean, air charged with the cinnamon scents of late October. Yet in this elm\u2014 ablaze with color, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8975,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8923"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8931,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8923\/revisions\/8931"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.糖心传媒.edu\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}