ALICE FOGEL
Nothing But
Join Us at Mitchell•Giddings Fine Arts
with Alice Fogel discussing the effects
on consciousness of abstract expressionist art
and reading from Nothing But
Date TBD
5-7pm
Author meet and greet with book signing
Nothing But will be available for purchase
Reading and Discussion with Alice Fogel
Art, Language, Consciousness: Poetry Responding to Abstract Expressionism
Former New Hampshire poet laureate Alice Fogel talks about ways abstract expressionist works of art, some by local artists, inspired her new book of poems, Nothing But: a series of indirect considerations on art & consciousness. The poems in Nothing But do not describe or explain the artworks they are triggered by; rather than focus on narrative, as one could when looking at a representational piece of art, these poems chart the effect of abstract expressionism as a welcome interruption to our constant stream of consciousness. Alice will read from her book and discuss how the art served as an entry into a new way of seeing and even thinking, and explain how she arrived at the unusual structure, as well as content, of the poems.
Alice B Fogel served as the New Hampshire poet laureate from 2104 through 2019. Her latest book is Nothing But: a series of indirect considerations on art & consciousness. A Doubtful House is her previous collection, preceded by Interval: Poems Based on Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” which won the Nicholas Schaffner Award for Music in Literature and the 2016 NH Literary Award in Poetry. An earlier book, Be That Empty, was a national poetry bestseller. She is also the author of Strange Terrain, on how to appreciate poetry without necessarily “getting” it—which offers inroads to poetry useful for readers, writers, and teachers. Nominated for Best of the Web and twelve times for the Pushcart, she has been awarded a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and her poems have appeared in many journals & anthologies, including Best American Poetry, Spillway, Hotel Amerika, The Inflectionist, and The Southern Review. She works one-on-one with students with learning differences, and hikes mountains whenever possible.
Nothing But, by Alice Fogel, September 2021
“Nothing But reveals the disruptions-welcome or unsettling-to our stream of consciousness that occur when we encounter the unexplainable. In these poems, such suspensions of linear thought become a beckoning toward transcendence, an opening both deeper into, and out beyond, our perceptions in an otherwise prescribed world.”
~Barnes and Nobel
“This is a ground-breaking book that boldly traverses the heretofore ignored gold mine of abstract painting as a source, succeeding as it does in its venture to see beyond an immediately recognizable narrative in which ‘a story could stumble out of here / unrecognizable as a wanderer from a blizzard / snow blind.’ In Nothing But, Fogel leads her reader into vital new ways of ‘seeing’ that translates as it muses, enlightens as it divines. With a parallax vision that combines her knowledgeable, complex ‘eye’ for both craft and aesthetic appeal, Fogel instructs her reader on how to appreciate abstract expression in both visual and emotional ways, to the point where ‘our eyes hurt when we look away.’ I can think of no other book like it.”
~Chard deNiord, former poet laureate of Vermont and author of In My Unknowing
“In this luminous collection, Alice Fogel orchestrates a rich exploration of the nature of abstraction and meets us ‘at the curbed / diversions of the eventful.’ These breathtaking poems seem paintings themselves—and their shades, their layers and scrapings and frames, intensify even as they fragment, recall even as they reinvent. Nothing But speaks to us of immediacy, wakes us and prods us and recreates the mind’s particular journeys. These are mystical portraits of our pains and victories, much-needed remedies as we endure the ‘encoreless rehearsal’ of this life.”
~Jennifer Militello, author of The Pact