Pages

Monday, December 18, 2023

On an Afternoon Walk ~ Back Alley Poetry

Back Alley art is garish, harsh, beautiful or sensitive. I’m sure there are many adjectives that describe the graffiti splashed in such brilliant colours in the greyness of alleys. Shock value when all around is filled with windblown trash, garbage bins, recycling bins across from dusty parking spaces for tenants of square, utilitarian apartment buildings. These marvellous paintings are on fences, railway cars, buildings, and anywhere there is a flat surface that begs to be a canvas for an artist. I’ve been down this particular alley a time or two in bright daylight because it offers a shortcut and a brilliant art tour. They’ve changed since my last sojourn last summer. Stopped in my tracks, I read the poet's words and was comforted.


“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, 

a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”

~ Robert Frost

No comments: