I’ve been slowly working my way through a lot of the poems that Bruce Weigl sent me. It was really pretty awesome of him to send me copies of his books that I did not already have. Also, he commented that it wasn’t much to send me his books when I sent him a painting, and I get what he meant. But the truth is that if he hadn’t written the poem I based the painting on, then I wouldn’t have had that art to give him. I do think that we all under value our own work, though, and maybe that’s normal, but I want to stop doing that myself, and I want to state here, before I even get a chance to write Bruce back, that it is one of the best gifts I’ve ever received to have the books he sent me.

But this painting that I have done for Hugh J. Martin was inspired by his poem “Raid” from his book The Stick Soldiers. I do think this painting is enhanced by the poem (I can’t say if the poem is made better by the painting), and I hope that as I continue to work on these types of paintings going forward that the art I make that is inspired by art I’ve consumed will create a conversation that is worth listening to and, hopefully, worth engaging in.