Marjorie Wood Gallery

Poetry by Ingrid Keir

Drawings by Kyle Knobel

August - September 2009

For the exhibit at the online Marjorie Wood Gallery, visual artist Kyle Knobel and poet Ingrid Keir collaborate on a body of work centered around their apartment.

Ingrid says, "since we are married and live together, and this place is the first and last thing we see each day, it seemed a good place to form a show around."

The first image of the show is a watercolor painting of the typewriter belonging to Ingrid's grandfather, also a writer.

From Kyle, "I was interested in the sort of aggregate energy collecting in this little machine, now passed down to another artist in the family. This family continuity is of interest to me, as it is absent in my own."

Ingrid's selection of writing revolves around events that are both incidental and specific to the home. The apartment as studio, as kitchen, as place to spend time, as a place for love and for annoyances, are all explored.

22 Tours of Chi-Town

Long before the Obamas and Oprah, Chicago had been deemed a cultural hub of the Midwest. I recently discovered that The Poetry Foundation, publisher of the highly esteemed Poetry magazine, has created a wonderful online poetry tour of the Windy City. This twenty-two part series not only combines maps, images and audio, but also has many poets reading their own work and discussing the Chicago poetry scene, past and present. It is thrilling to hear Gwendolyn Brooks read, and surprising to find the voice I have in my head differs drastically to what she actually sounds like when reading her work.

Go ahead, listen to it while you are supposed to be working at that boring office job, or if you are one of the funemployed. A wise artist once said, “If it is fun, it shouldn’t cost anything!” You’ll be happy to know this tour is F-R-E-E!

Visual Poetry

Hello Friends!

I've decided to start blogging again, so here goes the first post. This past April I was super inspired by the "Free Verse Project" for National Poetry Month by the Academy of American Poets.

See here for more info:

http://poets.org/page.php/prmID/541

I've since been crafting art pieces based on the concept that poetry can be a visual experience. Below are a few concepts I'm developing. I'll continue to post as I develop others.

I love the ocean, pirates & sea glass. The idea of a message in a bottle has always fascinated me since I was a child.

"bottle poem"

I wrote a lot of short poems initially meant to be postcards, but they work as here as short succinct snippets. Hopefully none of the exes will take offense!

"letters to the past"

My grandfather's Underwood. This is the best hand-me-down I've ever gotten. I'll need to dedicate a post to elaborate, but I've been typing up a lot of poems using this beauty. There is something so special and concrete about using a typewriter. Old school. It is nothing short of thrilling. If you send me a word, I'll send you an insta-poem!

old school beauty