Poster Image
$20
Item#: 2014SYR16
Purchase Details
11x17-inches, printed on heavy weight (100-pound) Hammermill cover paper. We package each print with a piece of chipboard in a clear plastic sleeve.
You also receive…
An information page with photos of the artist and poet, and hand-written comments from each.
Medium- and large-format posters are available by custom order. Contact us for details.
Poem Inspiration Location
Cold December Wind
poster information
Description
Cold December wind.
Brave blue jay scans horizons,
seeking his last meal.
I wrote my poem after taking a photograph. I started photographing wildlife. I need to exercise because of stage-two diabetes. I wanted to get out more, only instead of just walking, I prefer there should be a point to walking. I like to take pictures, so why not—as the perfect thing to do—take pictures of wildlife?
It was the first year I was doing this, and I was happy to find a blue jay. A very rare thing indeed. And I had an impossibly good shot, because it was sitting on the very top of the tree. Right at the tippy top. It looked so nice and heroic, standing there. It was cold, and the wind was singing, and I knew that he was out there scavenging. I admired that this guy was still out there, that he stuck it out.
I grew up in southern Georgia, while my parents both grew up in and around Syracuse. Upon transferring to SU in my junior year of college, my parents kept telling me, “The winters here are rough” and “You need to prepare yourself, because it's going to be a complete different environment.” I just kind of laughed these things off at first, until I had to go outside one snowy enjoying and search for my car under three feet of snow. The cold, the ice and snow—it is a completely new thing for me, but I have come to enjoy it.
When I read this poem, it all just clicked with me. I saw part of me in that blue jay, searching for something in midst of winter. My style of work tends to evoke movement with explosive use of color, so when you view this piece, you can almost visualize that jay flying. When viewing this work, all of my work, I want the viewer to be taken somewhere new. In the cold and the grey of winter there is still color, there is still life. I want you to see that. The world is beautiful.