Clyfford. 
There is no wind in here. 

Your turning flames of color 
rotate as our minds ignite. 

In the thick of 1949 No. 1 
an engineer’s depth of field. 

The doorway embers swing 
on an invisible hinge. 

A specter of electricity 
exposes the fallacy. 

Yet your Star-Gate turns, 
and burns still. 

Poet’s Notes:

“1949 No. 1” is an ekphrastic poem to Clyfford Still, from an unpublished collection.

When I was a child, one of my distant uncles ran a restaurant situated on a high bluff overlooking a tidal inlet on the coast of Maine. I spent time there during summer breaks helping out in the kitchen and painting the scenery. When the high tide was running, my uncle loved to go surfcasting for striped bass, inviting my cousins and me to come along, often in the early morning hours. I brought my paint box and attempted to capture the surf by moonlight.

My work is currently represented in the journals Eastern Structures [Journal of Asian Poetry Forms] and Haiku Avenue [X-Force Productions]; also a 20-year inclusion in Lynx, journal of linking poets (Renga). Although I have had a number of chapbooks published, I do not have a full “collection.” So at 78 I’m still “emerging.”

Edward Baranosky

has painted seascapes since he was seven years old. His focus on marinescapes, draws him back to visit his native home on the American east coast, for inspiration from the North Atlantic. His work emphasizes the present, in the ever-changing moments of water. As a poet-artist he crosses the channels and pathways between the visual and the textual. He continues to exhibit in the United States and Canada. Baranosky owns a small press, EAB Publishing, for poetry chapbooks and related material. He currently lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Four Seasons chapbook (EAB Publishing, 2003), with renga by Ed Baranosky and Jen Finlayson, reviewed by Jane Reichhold in Lynx (XIX, 1 February 2004)

⚡ Half-a-dozen of Baranosky’s chapbooks published through his press and listed at Aha Poetry: Four Seasons (2003, 32 pages) as described above; The Outer Coast (2002, 40 pages) with eight poetic forms, B&W ink drawings, and a color cover by Baranosky; Spindrift (2000, 40 pages) with glosa, sijo, ghazal, haiku, and tanka, plus ink drawings; Raindancing (1999, 38 pages) with haiku, tanka sequences, and glosa, plus ink drawings; Eye of the Storm (1998, 40 pages) with haiku and waka-style verse; and Ghostdancing (1997, 38 pages) with poetry, drawings, and cover art by Baranosky