Black & White (1966)—an unnumbered auto-historical series
Artists have it all when they are born and it just comes out at the right time.—Elsworth Kelly
She said paint sky
So I do black sky cloud thick sky
new moon sky rural Missouri sky
what was god doing before stars sky
three coats of cheap tempera for so little blank to show through sky
Maybe it’s lonely at four-years old sky, but I don’t think so. Not yet.
More like Lutheran kindergarten in a church-basement sky
lights out before I’m tired staring out the window every night sky
back to the Ozarks’ caves & collapsed arcs after riots in Los Angeles sky
white strait-jacket dress at the Christmas show sky
told war happens far away after another evening news sky
For my teacher it is why did you do that sky
black is not a color sky
calling my mother at work when I don’t reply didn’t follow directions/ girls
don’t usually / bad example/ anything wrong at home/ why don’t you go to
church on Sunday sky
For my mother it is worn-out by evening why make ugly/
can’t you be creative at home sky
It is neither of them knows Color Field Painting but then I didn’t either sky
For Ellsworth Kelly it is Black Over White hard-edged sky
& camofleur of WWII/ three kinds of disguise—mimesis/ crypsis/ dazzle—sky
& countershade/ maximum disruptive contrast/ eliminate shadow sky
& I wanted to be anonymous sky
It is what / how / why are we hiding sky
& Miranda v. Arizona Vatican Index of Banned Books ends Dark Shadows Second Wave N.O.W. founded Indira Gandhi Freedom of Information Act Beatles at Candlestick Park Botswana/ Lesotho/ Barbados Independence bombing Hanoi color TV sets Gemini yields to Apollo Draft Deferment starts first Kwanzaa Black Panther Party founded Joseph Brodsky returns from exile HIV brought to the Americas China’s Cultural Revolution Martin Luther King struck by a rock in Chicago Stephanie Kwolek never gets to be a doctor & invents Kevlar instead We Real Cool/ Ariel/ Live or Die/ Necessities of Life sky
& can’t keep writing the same when no one asks what we repetitive for a reason lacking audience response picture lying in the dark picking out scraps of ideas & things wondering what your 1966 was like poem in here somewhere not nothing—not nothing—but everything sky
It’s picking up fragments one Sunday in January after dusting a poetry chap by that same teacher Mildred Broedehoeft off a packed attic shelf before turning a MMoCA corner into the black & white room naming the colors neither abstract nor anonymous sky
It’s the rectangle of the cubby where we tuck our coats/ the rect-
angle of windows that do not exist in this classroom
& the longest I have ever reflected before replying sky
—Wendy Vardaman
