| This Place Wind lies not soft and easy on the earth but heavy like dusk. I am watching it as it moves low and steady, crossing the entire length of the field. Before it, a gray mist silently glides against the tall grass and the almost indistinguishable earth. The blades sway, nudged and prodded, at the whim of the slightest breeze or heartbeat before it shifts suddenly. I lean close. Yes, I say. It is a whisper— a gasp of exhaustion panted into the soft flesh of the earth— made even more tender by dew and the remnants of last night’s drizzle. I swallow a tightness that comes up suddenly into my mouth. As much as I fight it, I force myself to turn— to walk with my back to this wind despite the fact that it makes me feel clean and exultantly pure in a way I never have before. |
| This one perfect moment A whorl of blue and rust turns slowly to an existence so subtle we might not even notice it. The fiery glory jaundices the arch of the sky, hidden from us by knotty birch trunks and grasping fingers of branches. A steady sigh is going on someplace nearer than we thought or imagined. It hovers there— the voice of what surrounds us. All we hear— in this one perfect moment— is its steady, unrelenting yesssss! |
| Almost There The lake reflects the wrong scenery. We reach out for it, almost as we would a star or a low-lying cloud. We’re half-way there. There— where violets bloom all through the day. We’re almost there— where the oak’s own branches reach forward to touch its reflection just as we might touch our own. |
| ISBN 978-0-615-33346-5 $35.00 Enso Press P.O. Box 10115 Fargo, ND 58104 |
| This Grass Poems by Paintings by JAMIE PARSLEY GIN TEMPLETON |
| All poems Copyright (c) 2009 by Jamie Parsley All paintings Copyright (c) 2009 By Gin Templeton |
| When poet Jamie Parsley and artist Gin Templeton collaborated on a multi-media showing of his poems and her paintings in 2006, neither imagined their work would merge so effortlessly. With amazingly similar artistic eyes, both poet and painter attempt to capture the natural world of the “border country” between North Dakota and Minnesota. Their vision is a place of stark beauty and this work which reflects that combined perspective truly is a “blending and blurring of two similar but diverse visions.” |
| About the Poet JAMIE PARSLEY was born in Fargo, North Dakota. The first of his seven books of poems, Paper Doves, Falling and Other Poems, was published in 1992 when he was 22. Over the next 18 years, he published nine more books of poems including The Loneliness of Blizzards (1995), a book-length poem, Cloud (1997), The Wounded Table (1999), earth into earth (2000), no stars, no moon (2004), Ikon (2005) and Just Once (2007). His tenth book, Fargo, 1957 (forthcoming in 2010) chronicles the June, 1957 tornado that struck Fargo. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Vermont College and a Master’s degree from Nashotah House Seminary. An Episcopal priest, he serves as Executive Assistant to the Bishop for the Episcopal Diocese of North Dakota and as Priest-in-Charge of St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Fargo. He also teaches at the University of Mary’s Fargo campus. In 2004, Jamie was named an Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota by N.D. Poet Laureate Larry Woiwode. His website is www.jamieparsley. com. |
| About the Artist GIN TEMPLETON grew up in Minnesota. She has lived in North Dakota for 28 years and in Fargo for 15 years. Always aspiring to be an artist, she studied art in high school and college and has taken numerous workshops in painting and pastel. She has enjoyed working in various art related jobs including commercial design, fashion illustration, costume design and construction, sign painting, stained glass, mosaic, liturgical art and gallery framing. In 1995, she rented a studio space, where she began to focus on painting daily and developing a body of work. Her work has been exhibited at the Spirit Room Gallery, Underbrush Gallery and the Avalon Event Center, all in Fargo, North Dakota, the Jamestown (ND) Art Center, in Minneapolis, MN and around the U.S. Gin is a member of the Lake Country Pastel Society, the Pastel Society of America and the Fargo-Moorhead Visual Artists. She has received many awards, including most recently the Best Pastel Award for Spirit of Grass I at the Arts in Harmony National Juried Exhibit in Elk River, MN in March 2006. Her paintings are in several corporate and private collections. She works out of her studio in downtown Fargo, North Dakota. Her work is available at fargostuff.com. |
