at last have some small works of art,
some short poems, short pieces of music
[. . .] some intimate, low-voiced, and delicate things
in our mostly huge and roaring, glaring world?"
~ Elizabeth Bishop ~
`
Painting of Breakfast by Jessie Willcox Smith"Breakfast Perspective
you can bet that if oatmeal was bigger than us, he said,
we'd be breakfast cereal in a minute"
Brian Andreas (b. 1956)
American writer, painter, sculptor, publisher,
and creator of StoryPeople
*********************************
Some Days
Some days I put the people in their places at the table,
bend their legs at the knees,
if they come with that feature,
and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.
All afternoon they face one another,
the man in the brown suit,
the woman in the blue dress,
perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved.
But other days, I am the one
who is lifted up by the ribs,
then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse
to sit with the others at the long table.
Very funny,
but how would you like it
if you never knew from one day to the next
if you were going to spend it
striding around like a vivid god,
your shoulders in the clouds,
or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper,
staring straight ahead with your little plastic face
Billy Collins (b. 1941)
Poet Laureate of the United States, 2001 - 2003
New York State Poet, 2004-2006
***********************************
I find this topic so intriguing -- the dollhouse, the little dolls, the shift in perspective from the miniature to the gigantic -- I could write a book about it.
Oh, that's right, I already did:
THE MINIATURE BODY OF THE DOLL AS SUBJECT AND OBJECT
You can read more about my book
on The Fortnightly Kitti Carriker
