Accademia

On the first day of my eleventh grade English class, my beautiful teacher, Mrs. Kathy Hayes, stood up on a chair and screamed, "Words! Words, Ladies! Words!" She was reenacting the first day of one of her English classes at Meredith college, in which her professor yelled at her students the same way. To be honest, I don't remember anything she said after that, but I do remember understanding exactly what she meant. Of course. Words.

If you’ve been close to me in the past year, you know that I like poetry. I’ve found that its power is not necessarily in the final piece of paper, or how the words cover the page in neat, typed up, printed completeness. It is not perfectly manicured and coherent like prose. Poetry is not about completeness. It is about how each word relates to the ones around it. I learned from Pulitzer Prize winning poet, Jorie Graham, that poetry is about letting each word and image come and go, making us fully present in the moment of reading. It is not some definitive meaning that comes at the end. It needs very little explanation. Poetry tries to reveal everything about the moment it lives in.

Today, my drawing professor, John Taylor, took a group of us to the Accademia to draw Michelangelo's David. As expected, it was more impressive in person than in any photo I've seen [more impressive than the replica in front of Palazzo Vecchio, which I walk by every day]. As I worked through my first gesture, I got an even better idea of how lovely his lines are, standing calmly contrapposto, hips swung, almost unconcerned by the giant in front of him.

After a few sketches, John took us back down the open hall to look at some unfinished pieces by Michelangelo. David seems to watch over them. Standing beside the furthest one, he said, "Now look back at the David." We looked. "It's impressive, yes. But this [gesturing to the unfinished piece], this unfinished man, pushing outward, not yet born--this is poetry." Once again, I knew exactly what he meant.

[Note: For full effect, anything said by John must be read in a British accent]

Now, some of you are laughing right now because the scene I just described sounds too much like the far too typical mush of obnoxious, artist jibber-jabber. If I hadn't been so taken by it, I would probably be laughing along with you. Maybe it was the accent...

What he meant was that it wasn't the figure's perfection that was beautiful. This piece, unfinished, certainly wasn't perfect. What was so beautiful about it was its possibility--the fact that it wasn't finished--the fact that you can still see Michelangelo moving around the marble, pushing further and further backwards until this man starts to find his way out of the block.

None of this really matters. It’s probably starting to sound like that mushy stuff I mentioned before. I just wanted to say that being unfinished or fragmented or disjointed is more powerful than being a perfect piece of prose. It is more powerful than being a shiny, finished piece of marble that will never be changed again.

I just wanted to say that I’ve never been so glad that I, too, am unfinished.


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“Do not let your adornment be merely outward—arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel—rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God.” 1 Peter 3:3-4