“Mayflies”
Collaborators’ Q&A: Poet Roy Seeger: I think “refract” is an appropriate word to describe Helen Kaplan’s work here; it captures one instant of the mayfly’s iridescent wings, as if in amber. The collaboration better captures the moment before a physical act (whatever that may be) a moment of stasis, full of potential energy—even the physical poem hovers over the wings, a thing suspended mid-air as if by the humidity… Artist Helen Beckman Kaplan: I think that just about any descriptive narrative results in a very specific image for me in the same way that places in a dream have a specific sense of layout and detail. So I thought about trying to express that, in a line or tone drawing, but I was ultimately drawn to the idea of the delicacy of mayfly wings.
Poet Roy Seeger received his MA in poetry from Ohio University and his MFA (also in poetry) from Western Michigan University where he teaches part-time. “Mayflies” was first published in The Southeast Review. Artist Helen Beckman Kaplan is a painter from Brooklyn who was educated at Rhode Island School of Design, Tyler School of Art, Indiana University and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture.