This attractively bound volume combines two elements brought together in 2001 in celebration of Yale’s tercentennial anniversary, part of a series of events that focused on “Creativity at Yale”.  John Hollander, the Sterling Professor of English, and Joanna Weber the Assistant Curator of European and Contemporary Art, conceived of this unique project in which twenty-two Yale alumni poets wrote works inspired by 20th Century works they chose from the Yale Art Gallery.

The book’s cover features a gorgeous and mysterious painting by Edward Hopper, and each of the 22 entries in the book juxtaposes a poem with a work of art chosen by the poet.  Some of the poems are ekphrastic, i.e. they directly address the work of art, its subject, technique, materials, etc.  Others are emotional responses to the work or riffs on the subject matter represented in the artwork.  As Hollander writes in his introduction, “The reader will notice among the poems and visual objects paired here, not only a variety of stances toward the visual object, but toward various ideas of what a poem to or about a work might be.”

I’ve read this book several times since we bought it after viewing the exhibit in New Haven more than 20 years ago, and reading it again, I was rewarded with the pleasure of experiencing the creative energy that poets, painters, sculptors, and photographers bring to their work and then share with us, the viewer and reader.  The closing flyleaf of the cover lists the 22 poets in a vertical column followed by the 22 artists, evoking images for me of those elementary school tests where you connect the related items in two columns with a penciled line.  I was familiar with 20 of the 22 artists (e.g. Dali, Bonnard, Calder, Hopper, Pollock, Oldenburg, Rothko, et al), but in contrast, most of the Yale poets were new to me.  Other than Hollander, McClatchy, Warren, and Burt, I had no familiarity with them but read their bios at the back of the book with interest and was very impressed.  Yale evidently turns out poets like Harvard Business School turns out CEO’s.

This is a lovely book to hold and to behold.  Dipping into it at random provides both visual and cerebral pleasure.  The contents are also a reminder that life is short and art is long.  Of the 22 poets who wrote these poems more than 20 years ago, six have died, three at young ages, one by suicide and one who went missing while hiking on a volcanic Japanese island.  The living poets are almost all teaching at universities, two at Harvard, none at Yale.  Not sure what all of that means except Tempus Fugit.