The Prison Artist
1.
The
prison artist works away
in
her cell on her latest creation,
intensity
identical to any artist
wherever
she may be working:
home,
studio, even out
in
the open air.
For
to the artist it matters not, we know,
where
she may find herself in space
so
long as the mind is free to wander
among
the shapes and the colors.
(Her
brush shifts a line here
a
bit to the left, the tint
of
the area that it borders
just
a hair more
toward
the violet end
of
the spectrum.)
Wherever
she finds herself in space:
out
in the open air, in a studio, or at home―
but
especially when home is
the
inside of a prison cell―
every
artist, working on her latest
is,
you see, painting the gateway
to
freedom.
2.
The
prison artist
coats
a square of glazed bricks
in
the wall of her cell with black paint,
hangs
a sign:
“I
have painted the gateway to Hell,”
it
reads
“Do not
open.”
Steve
Bloom
September
2014
Steve Bloom and Dominic Newsome:
This
poem was not written about Dominic Newsome. Dominic is a prison
artist, but the poem was written years before I had ever heard
his name. When the Meeting House Gallery in Columbia, Maryland,
decided to display some of Dominic' artwork the person
putting the exhibit together asked if they could also hang the
framed text of my poem. Of course I said "yes." On Saturday, June
1, an open house took place during which the public could
meet some of the artists. I decided to attend, and started to learn
more about Dominic—even though of course he
was not among the artists who was able to be present that day. If you
too want to learn more about Dominic Newsome and the exhibit click here—Steve.