McBride Fibs
Poems Written on the Occasion of the
McBride Reunion (May 2006)



grass
grid
criss cross
across grass
geometric space
opens pathway inside myself

Minna Duchovnay


this
path
a place
to ponder
all I can become
my
neg
ative
space between
worlds shifts all landscape

Sarah Campbell



dark
sky
over
white --
reverse the image
find the familiar once again
soft
path
beckons
through the trees
wherever it leads
merits some investigation

Mary Anne Lyons


pure
cold
magic
perfect spirit light
falls eternal perfect wisdom
cold
clear
journey
raw canvas
perfect solitude
unforeseen light and soft shadow

Sandy Membrino


A
life
force. veins
humming be
neath the thin skin of
dirt and grass. I see snow. I feel
I
feel
bark. I
love the feel
of bark - rough and grain.
I smell the bark. It reminds me of
how I felt when I walked onto campus
the very first time.

Nancy Schmucker


MIST
in
RAIN and
FOG coax the pen-
etration of the mystery
of being alone with thoughts of exploration

Elaine Ewing, '00

it
looks
like a
baby in
utero, stark, ugly.
have I ingested a new drug?



trees
sky
dark shadows
lots of greens
trees to shade the Sun
lacelike delicate leaves reaching
upward to the Heavens

Beverly Weiss


dream
out
of
focus

dream
walk
dared it
work work work
would I be worthy
filling in a wholeness

dream
un
known

She who can't count
Debbie Plotnick


Abstract
winter
Quiet shadows
Negative pattern view
waiting peace landscape emptiness Beauty
Dark black grass wide angle campus holiday viewer


see
this
whats not
easily seen
in the ordered world of
cultivated grass trees light leaves


landscape
shadows
celebrations race
beyond negative space
altered by silence cool nite
deaths presence life embraces the road, the journey.

Sandra Patty, '03


My
park
that beckons
me to walk
in early morning
when shadows are long, song is light

Carla Martinez, '92


most
meaningful
is to
relax. it will
perhaps, put a positive spin
on what is - find the softness, it is
there! either that sharpness
with the jagged edge that will kill and kill and kill
or the soft satisfying ways of scenes
so sweet so luscious, so juicy,
so possible - perhaps
to relax?

Mary Ferrell


turned
up
side down
lightning streaks
becomes pillars to
hold up black heaven
flash and vanish and reappear
in this dark landscaoe orbed by an abyss
women thrive



snow
glows
below
negative
paths across the lawn
look like the back of a turtle

now
see
shadows
on the ground
trees in spring fall unknown
mad hatter runs across the lawn

(*part of Mark Lord's Alice in
Wonderland
took place on senior row)

Myra Reichel



up
hill
alone
promonade
past the focal point
to an unknown destination

Bryn Thompson



a
path
lined by
trees like lace
reminiscent photo
its moving upward and onward

Miriam Lancaster



Hah!
Sit
Quiet
Do you think?
Tell ourselves a story
Any minute someone will call


See
Run
The path
In the trees
This is only for graduates
Maybe one day I will be one too
The I can run down Senior Row with all the rest of them.

Whew!
Done.
Now what?
Where to go
What will I do now
Who can I turn to to get answers?

Annabella

The poems above are offered as examples of some of the "layers" that may emerge
when the unconscious is invited to give voice to an image,
to engage in the interactive processes of free associating and editing
that constitute the playful-yet-disciplined act of writing.

At the McBride Reunion in May 2006, participants were asked to look at
a negative and a developed photograph of Senior Row
(which had been made by Sharon Burgmayer, using a pinhole camera),
to free write about what they saw, and then to turn their first writings
into the sophisticated haiku-ish form known as "fibonacci poems."

|Ekphrasis (= giving "voice" to a work of art)

|The McBride Scholars Program
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