Poems produced in a Contemporary Art workshop during the pandemic by Carmen de Grado,
Degree in Teaching Psychology at the
The adaptation of a large part of the group to the technological environment to participate in the classes produced special creative participation. The poems analyzed here are some of them.
Foundation: The psychoanalytic authors coincide in understanding creativity as a necessary condition of man to get out of his “basic lackfrom that initial situation at birth in which our central nervous system needs another human to support and complete it.
Art is a tool that promotes creativity and healthy living that contributes to better coping with difficulties.
By focusing on the concept of transitional spaces this author gives us a clear idea of how people are deeply communicated, inserted in an environment that unites us. It unites us with each other and with the external. The exterior is not such to the extent that we communicate with it. The transitional space is no longer an external world, nor an internal world, but it belongs to both, it is transitional.
“Life is worth living and living creatively is a healthy state.. individuals live creatively and feel that life is worth living or cannot do so and doubt the value of living“(Winnicott).
philosophers like Heidegger they will say it is from a being thrown into the world and its possibilities that the human subject is constructed. Meaning world, that of cultural experiences:
- The spiritual atmosphere of a certain age.
- The cultural, social and political currents through which a specific era is going through.
- The set of ideas, beliefs and customs, everything that nourishes such a time, what the individual lives in it.
It is, from different disciplines, develop the conception of man as creator of worlds. Particularly poetry will be, as we will see in this work, the expression that allows to show the beingshow «What is the possibility of reflecting on poetry from poetry¨ (Heideger).
The most basic needs of man, those that are at the base of all creation are shared by all humans and lead us to travel a path of deep inner connection despite the diversity of productions that we obtain. This contributes to creativity and flexibility because what we find is variety and diversity of linked worlds.
The elderly population needs a world where the sensory, the emotional and the symbolic gain strength and are integrated into daily life. Art contributes by its essence to an integration of the aspects sensory – emotional, that is, they move to action and participation in an environment full of symbols. Both issues, the growth of the population of older people and art are enhanced and feed back.
Art and Life Workshop
Objectives of the workshop regarding creative expressions in a pandemic and particularly these poems:
- extract and analyze the creative samples of coping with respect to the pandemic situation in the activity carried out in the workshop.
- Transcribe the poems, interpret, reflect about them and leave a record.
poems
the sounds of loneliness: Brief video where the sounds of loneliness are recited. Lyrics, Eva Almosni. Voice, Claudia Rodrigues. It lasts 3.35.
They persecute me, they harass me, they adhere to my body like sticky living water, they cause pain, they burn in their insolent silence.
I feel a gasp in my astonished throat.
He wants to go out, it’s a claustrophobic scream that can’t stand so much darkness. My longing veins suck him in, my bloodstream catches him with their waving chimera tongues.
It can’t…fight…but it can’t get out of my lethargic throat.
I listen far away, a rumor of foamy waves, or is it perhaps the rain of his eyelids, so far away now, but so eternal in my mind.
I feel the velvet of soft loving hands slipping through my hesitant body, I hear the rustle of the fabric that envelops me with tender forgotten caresses…almost…forgotten.
I hear a rush of footsteps, restless, playful, that dodge me, chase me, stalk me… it accompanies me.
I feel the melodious trill of a canary, or is it perhaps its voice, its mischievous and singing smile?
I feel the wateriness of those steely eyes. I sink into them until I drown. Those sky-blue pupils hold me back… I don’t know if I’m in the middle of a daring sea, or a captivating sky…
I feel a constant tinkling, a murmur that stings my soul, as if a thousand hands were imprisoning me and not letting me breathe. I’m drowning. I too am a desperate cry, I want to get out of this crouching silence, but I can’t, the silence, the sound of this solitude is sour, it stuns but it also rocks me with its discordant, uncertain notes, like life itself.
I feel the crackling of an intense fire. I hear it, it’s real, I don’t dream or imagine it…
It consumes me with a thousand lit sparks. They are gleaming golden brands that incite me with their brazen brilliance, inviting me to join that enthralling pyre.
My cry continues to fight to escape from the clutches of my desolate interior. He wants light, he wants life, he wants freedom.
I no longer want the sound of loneliness to disturb me, to disturb me. I want my sound to be of life, of clarity, of hope.
Fight, my scream fights to get out and crawling down my inflamed throat, manages to escape from that lonely jail.
He succeeds… I can now scream… My crying is no longer a muffled cry… my cry has been able to breathe… it has been able to see the light, I have been able to scream… even though they accompany me… always… the sounds of solitude.
Analysis of the sounds of loneliness: By making her creation known to her group, the author encourages us to build that transitional world that is not only hers but also each one of us, but transformed, interpreted by each one. A description of sensations centered on the “sounds of loneliness” contributes to this. He uses many metaphors.
The sound is one, since as every metaphor transports us. It goes from being attached like sticky living waters and causing pain to being a rumor of foamy waves or the rustling of the fabric or restless steps that evoke the lost.
It oscillates between pleasure and suffering that come together in a sensation of suffocation and intense fire. The entire journey is evidence of flexibility, a flow of all diverse moments that invites us to perceive. Despite how particular and personal they convey, we can all understand and share their feelings. There is universality in it.
Its paths are familiar to us, it is a struggle for liberation. Nothing more shared and human than that search to express our feelings deep, for get out of the anguish that sometimes invades us. Nothing more human than the satisfaction of achieving it: “I can scream now. My crying is no longer a strangled cry……I have been able to see light«. Although achieving it is nothing more than a chimera… an illusion, something that only partially achieves: «I have been able to scream although the sounds of loneliness always accompany me».
- Fear
The fear . He weaves lewdly as if he’s toying with my yearning fear. It haunts me, I hide. She crouches waiting for my misstep. I whisper, slowly, I don’t want him to hear me. I feel that he smells me, he tastes me like a hungry hyena.
Like an unusual lightning bolt, a rain of jasmine covers my shaken being. I smell fragrant. I hurriedly groom myself. I don’t want to be caught unseemly.
I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU.
You can travel a thousand paths, you can set me a thousand traps, you can curl up in my bowels, but I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU.
Your voracity does not scare me, your chimera will not make me ashes… your thorns will only be breezes.
Although the rain of my eyelids runs out I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU.
You can tear down a thousand walls, you can win a thousand battles, but I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU.
You may be very gallant, you may be transparent, but I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU.
BLOOD FLOWS IN MY VEINS, LIFE BEATS IN MY VEINS
Analysis about fear: The author describes the fear, explains how you feel it, what happens in your body when you feel it. It is from that paranoid feeling: “It stalks me, it chases me, it seizes me with its sharp claws…» which is transforming into conscious self-observation: I whisper, slowly, I don’t want him to listen to me. I feel that he smells me, he tastes me like a hungry hyena.
Anticipate the possibility of being approached defenseless: «Like an unusual lightning bolt, a rain of jasmine covers my shuddering being. I smell fragrant. I hurriedly groom myself. I don’t want to be caught unseemly«.
Make the coping decision: «Even if the moon disappears, even if the sun sets, even if the stars dim, I AM NOT AFRAID OF YOU. Persists in his will to resist being aware of the risk: «Although your steel penetrates my blood, although your insatiable tenacity scares away my undulating ghosts…«
Towards the end, he empowers himself and advances with his raging self: «BLOOD FLOWS IN MY VEINS, LIFE BEATS IN MY VEINS«. However, the last sentence is of caution: Repeating “I’m not afraid of you“he adds: “UNTIL GOD SENDS IT SO”.
In the two poems there is an emotional journey, from pain to exit, from suffering to relief, there is a hermeneutic, a search, a passage, a liberation.
Results
In the 2020 closing zoom of the Art and Life Workshop, the space from which these poems exhibited here emerged, and in the final evaluation writings there are explicit allusions to creativity that are linked to: Gratitude towards the coordinators, the institution that shelters them , the group fabric they make up. The deepening of the word and art. Emotional commitment and strength in the face of difficulties to overcome.
Graciela Stábile: «A pure emotion beats its wings in this struggle for not giving up… This path of different days opened up and flowers were born in my autumnal garden».
All these questions build a space of creativity, well-being and resilience. The following words of Graciela Stábile, a member of the workshop, illustrate the group feeling. «`A pure emotion beats its wings in this fight for not giving up… This path of different days opened and flowers were born in my autumnal garden».
Conclusion
Art is a tool that promotes creativity and healthy living that contributes to better coping with difficulties.. The poems analyzed here confirm: Ligazón de the sensory, the emotional and the symbolic to the conceptual, giving rise to a greater integrity of the person and a greater expansion of consciousness with fluid of unconscious aspects that favor flexibility and creativity.
Bibliographic references
De Grado, C. (2012) Psychogerontology Art and Future, Buenos Aires, Scientific and Literary Ed. of the Maimonides University.
De Grado, C. (2018) Art and Longevity The image of the old man in painting. Buenos Aires, Ed. Living Letter.
Gadamer, HG (1996) The actuality of the beautiful, Barcelona, Paidós.
Heidegeer, M. (v original 1935-36) The origin of the work of art, in Caminos del bosque, Madrid, Alianza, 2000.
Heidegeer, M. (1983) Holderlin and the essence of poetry in Interpretations of Holderlin’s poetry, Barcelona, Ariel.
Jauss. HR (v original 1972) Small apology of the aesthetic experience, Barcelona, Paidós.
Oliveras, E. (2006) Aesthetics. The question of art, Buenos Aires, Ed….