The Blanton Project Cover (Oil Field Girls, 1940, by JerryBywaters) — Image by kenne
In 2009, Borderlands — Texas Poetry Review published a Special Ekphrastic Poetry Issue.
Founded in 1992, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review was created to respond to the Gulf War and is a literary journal based in Austin, Texas. They publish poetry, visual art, book reviews, and essays. The journal continues to garner a national readership, distributed across the U.S., with contributors worldwide.
The 2009 special issue contains 89 ekphrastic poems written about works of art in the Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin, one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. In March of 2009, the Writers in Performance Series at Lone Star College — Montgomery presented The Blanton Project, where some of the poets read their ekphrastic poems. One such poem was Oil Field Girls on the Jerry Bywaters painting, Oil Field Girls.
Oil Field Girls
Blue skies and the open road
until an hour and a half beyond San Angelo
and the highway yields to brazen curves.
It’s not their thumbs
that make you slow the red Road roadster,
nor even the vestal boots
that look to plant a few fresh kicks.
As stately as an oil rig
set beneath miasmic clouds,
they beckon restless wanderers
who never staked a wildcat claim.
These desperate locals travel lightly
yet do not need a map
to know which way is out.
Because it does not do to gawk,
you press your bootles foot against the gas
and hope next curve to find a Coke.
— Steven G. Kellman
After the readings were completed, the poets were invited to a reception at my home.
Click here to see photos from the reading and the reception.
— kenne
