“Company”
Collaborators’ Q&A
What did you think an artist would pick up on from your poem?
Poet Judith Werner: I thought it would be the mouse.
What inspires you in this poem?
Artist Se Thut Quon: I responded to the loneliness of the grand perspective.
Did the visual artist refract any element of the poem that made you see the poem differently?
Poet Judith Werner: It was the stars that made me see the phrase “eternal abundance” as relating to the universe.
When you began this piece, what aspect did you follow?
Artist Se Thut Quon: I could visualize the changing frames of reference while the word dream conjured science fiction. I wanted to create a scene that was both big and small. Pasta made me think of my mother’s colander, and then the image seemed to make sense.
What surprised you about this collaborative piece?
Poet Judith Werner: I am delighted by the surprising pasta, and awed by the visual pun of the upside down colander-hole stars representing stars overhead. It took me a few looks before I “read” the colander. At first I thought it was heaven over pasta, a wonderful mouse-eye view.
Have you ever written work that has been inspired by visual art? What was that experience like for you? Why were you inspired to do so?
Poet Judith Werner: I once wrote a poem about Renoir’s girl in blue holding a watering can because that hung in my childhood home and my mother often said it looked like my sister. One of the many editors rejecting it said he had too many poems about Renoirs!
Describe the collaboration in one word.
Poet Judith Werner: Inspiring
If the Broadsided collaboration were a piece of music, what would it be?.
Poet Judith Werner: Something humorous and profound by Mozart, perhaps Eine Kleine Nacht Musik.
Artist Se Thut Quon: I heard it just the other day. I’m sure you would know it. It was so familiar but I don’t know its name.
Read any good books lately?
Poet Judith Werner: Lots of adventure mysteries, several coincidentallly featuring Mayan codexes, but the “good” book I recently read was Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust.
Seen any good art lately?
Poet Judith Werner: My sister, the little girl with the watering can, is now a mature artist. I recently saw via the internet a painting of hers entitled Grandma Moon that I liked a lot.
Anything else?
Poet Judith Werner: I love the idea that I don’t know the folks at Broadsided, nor the artist who was called by my work to create a visual piece, and yet my words spoke to you. The collaboration is “inspiring” to me, and I hope it is inspiring to those who encounter it from the launch onwards.