My officemates
Out my office window in the AM / February 2009
Out my office window in the AM / February 2009
Notorious Non-cooperative Knitting / bag before felting / Feb. 2006
... as a poet I must refuse to cooperate with the committee on what I can only call esthetic* grounds. The view of life which we receive through the great works of art is a privileged one — it is a view of life according to probability or necessity, not subject to the chance and accident of our real world and therefore in a sense truer than the life we see lived all around us. I believe that one of the things required of us is to try to give life an esthetic ground, to give it some of the pattern and beauty of art. I have tried as best I can to do this with my own life, and while I do not claim any very great success, it would be anti-climactic, destructive of the pattern of my life, if I were to cooperate with the committee. Then too, poets have been notorious non-cooperators where committees of this sort are concerned. As a traditionalist, I would prefer to take my stand with Marvell, Blake, Shelley and Garcia Lorca rather than with innovators like Mr. Jackson. I do not wish to bring dishonor upon my tribe.”
~ Thomas McGrath's Statement to the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC)
* esthetic: a philosophical theory as to what is beautiful
I take with me a taste of earth / Feb. 2009
Tulips basking in the glow of the sun / April 2007