Poetry and Art at King Farm, Woodstock, Vermont

Archaic kouros from Delos, 6th century B.C.E.

On Sunday, September 21, 2014, three poets (Phyllis Katz, Suzanne Nothnagle, and Ann Perbohner) will read together at historic King Farm as part of an annual sculpturefest held annually at this beautiful location. The reading will be held at 2:00 pm. For more information and directions, go to http://www.sculpturefest.org.

This event offers an ideal opportunity to see how the arts constantly complement each other. 
The poem below is one of many that articulate this important connection.

Archaic Torso of Apollo            
Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875 - 1926   

We cannot know his legendary head
with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso
is still suffused with brilliance from inside,
like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, 

gleams in all its power. Otherwise
the curved breast could not dazzle you so,
nor could  a smile run through the placid hips
and thighs to that dark center where procreation flared. 

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced
beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders
and would not glisten like a wild beast’s fur: 

would not, from all the borders of itself,
burst like a star: for here there is no place
that does not see you. You must change your life.

Stephen Mitchell, Translation

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