“Among Elders”
Collaborators’ Q&A
Poet Cecelia Hagen: I was surprised that the artist took an abstract approach to the poem, which has several visual elements–trees, a possible fox, or maybe robbers. But I can also see how the art illustrates the poem, the speaker’s sense of awkwardness, the unraveling self, the oafish loafishness of the rock/potato/bar of soap becoming unencumbered in spite of its immobility. Artist Janice Redman: When I read “Among Elders” the first time, I felt soaked in something I recognized, particularly as I got closer and closer to the last verse. It’s the feeling I have when I walk to a pond in the woods and then into the water—leaving the car, leaving the phone, not knowing if I will be alone—and always the trepidation I feel as I enter and immerse into the unknown of the water.