The Thing With Feathers

Poetry and Art come together

Like birds of a feather, students, staff, and community members flocked together for “The Thing With Feathers” gallery reception that was held in the South Santiam Hall Gallery on Wednesday, April 6 at noon.

This is the sixth annual Ekphrasis Exhibition celebrating Poetry month, and it continues until April 28.

In the SSH gallery there are 10 featured local artists and 14 poems from students on campus and from the LBCC Poetry Club.

Before stimulating the minds of attendees, the artists and poets were asked to stand near their work. It made for a brief impactful moment watching each person flutter to their positions in the gallery.

Ceph Poklemba started the poetry reading off with his poem titled “Cresting.” He wrote “Cresting” because ospreys are one of his favorite birds. He strayed from his norms of poetry and explored something different with this poem and was inspired with the imagery around the Willamette River.

“It was something simple that I wanted to write as I don't write structured or classically styled poetry often, and had a lot of fun playing around with that and off-rhyme schemes as well,” said Poklemba

One poet, Emily Joliff got creative with her presentation for her poem titled “Birds For Thought.” She fell in love with birds during her time in Robin Havenicks class; this is where she decided to make poems into birds.

“There's a meditation technique when you’re trying to clear your mind, but are struggling with still thinking about a lot of things, you can make your mind a blue sky, and then every thought you have into a bird flying slowly across your sky, and out of the picture, so that you can finally have a peaceful and rested mind,” said Joliff.

Joliff created a bird nest and origami birds from poems and put them on display. She likes to think of words as birds, because they are free and inspiring.

“My reflections cut into folding strips of paper, so that they could be read, but still look like individual little pieces of sticks or draw like a real nest; it was sort of the idea that the finished poems were sitting on their original ideas and thoughts, that the poems sort of "hatched" out of my mind and grew into beautiful things,” said Joliff.

Local artist Kerry Bliss has two photographs on display in the SSH gallery. The story she shared behind the photographs was remarkable and heartbreaking at the same time. The two photographs are called “Crow Funeral I” and “Crow Funeral II.” She described seeing a crow funeral and her experience that day and in that moment. Bliss left the room speechless.

The gallery reception concluded and attendees dispersed. Each artist and poet put together a wonderful collaboration that manifested, “The Thing With Feathers.”