Art-to-Art Palette Journal

IN: Portland

WHERE: Hall Moser Theatre.

WHEN: Friday, May 17, 2013 at 7:30 pm. Note: There is no admission fee.

TITLE: George Bilgere: Poetry as Art and Entertainment

BRIEF ABOUT: Bilgere has published five collections of poetry with is most recent one, “The White Museum” was awarded the 2009 Autumn House Poetry Prize. His third book, “The Good Kiss” (2002), was selected by Billy Collinsto win the University of Akron Poetry Award. He has won numerous awards, including the Midland Authors Award, the May Swenson Poetry Award for his collection Haywire (2006), and a Pushcart Prize.

     Additionally, a writing workshop at the Jay County Public Library is on Saturday, May 18, 2013, from 9:00 am to Noon. Bilgere will teach the craft of poetry with examples from published poems. To register, call 260.726.7890 or email newsnotes@jaycpl.lib.in.us by Friday, May 17. 

 

The White Museum

My aunt was an organ donor

and so, the day she died,

her organs were harvested

for medical science.

I suppose there must be people

who list, under “Occupation,”

“Organ Harvester,” people for whom

it is always harvest season,

each death bringing its bounty.

They spend their days

loading wagonloads of kidneys,

whole cornucopias of corneas,

burlap sacks groaning with hearts and lungs

and the pale green sprouts of gall bladders,

and even, from time to time,

the weighty cauliflower of a brain.

 

And perhaps today,

as I sit in this café, watching the snow

and thinking about my aunt,

a young medical student somewhere

is moving through the white museum

of her brain, making his way slowly

from one great room to the next.

Here is the gallery of her girlhood,

with that great canvas depicting her father

holding her on his lap in the backyard

of their bungalow in St. Louis.

And here is a sketch of her

the summer after her mother died,

walking down a street in Berlin

when the broken city was itself

a museum. And here

is a small, vivid oil of the two of us

sitting in a café in London

arguing over the work of Constable

or Turner, or Francis Bacon

after a visit to the Tate.

 

I want you to know, as you sit there

with your microscope and your slides,

there’s no need to be reverent before these images.

That’s the last thing she would have wanted.

But do be respectful. Speak quietly.

No flash photography. Tell your friends

you saw something beautiful.

 “The White Museum” by George Bilgere. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

MORE DETAILS: www.georgebilgere.com.

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