WHEN Eric Magrane first moved from Maine to the Sonoran Desert, he marveled at the sharpness of the landscape. On a thick piece of glass, he sandblasted:
HERE THINGS BECOME
SHARPER WITH AGEOut in Saguaro National Park West, he took photos of the piece--balanced in a cholla, resting between the main body and arm of a saguaro, in the branches of an ocotillo.
Having begun to experiment with the presentation of poetry off the white page while he was a student at Goddard College in Vermont, Magrane’s first sandblasting project was to sandblast “you must change” (part of a famous line from Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo”) into granite. Of course, the granite resisted change, and it took many hours to dig the line into the piece. This was the last piece he sandblasted into granite; since then, he has focused his poetry toward the surface of glass and mirror.
He is especially drawn to mirrors: as the reflective surface of a mirror is actually behind the glass, a letter sandblasted into mirror holds a great amount of depth. Viewing from about a forty-five degree angle, it seems as if the letter is printed twice—once on the surface, once on the back. Literally, this makes the word a reflexive thing. Magrane's current projects have also expanded to include public art, environmental art/poetry installations, and blown glass.
The poetry that Magrane writes for his glass and mirror pieces often starts from his experience of wild, natural places. As a professional hiking guide, he spends many of his days in the sky islands surrounding Tucson. He has been named an Artist-in-Residence at Big Cypress National Preserve, Isle Royale National Park, and at Buffalo National River. He received his B.A. from Goddard College, his M.F.A. from the University of Arizona, and has taught poetry and writing at Prescott College, the University of Arizona, and at Pima Community College. His poetry has been published in journals such as you are here: journal of creative geography, Café Review, and Liberty Hill Poetry Review. You can also find some of his poetry published in the online journals terrain.org, Sugar Mule, and EOAGH: A Journal of the Arts.
Read an interview about the Big Cypress National Preserve residency in The Poetry Center's July 2008 Newsletter.
Join Magrane and Wendy Burk for a University of Arizona Poetry Center workshop on the trail in the Santa Catalina mountains on Saturday, July 19. To learn more about the workshop, see the course Poetry Goes for a Hike: Writing in the Field on the Poetry Center's website.
Check out another poem in Issue 20 of Right Hand Pointing, an issue devoted to poems less than or equal to thirty words.Read a short poem by Magrane in Issue 19 of Right Hand Pointing, which specializes in "short fiction short poetry short commentary short..uh..art." Check out the other short work while you're there, too.
Thanks to Arizona Commission on the Arts for awarding Magrane an Artist Career Advancement Grant in the spring of 2008.
In May 2008, Eric Magrane and Wendy Burk will be Artists in Residence at Big Cypress National Preserve, where they will write a collaborative poem series building off of their previous collaborations at Isle Royale National Park and Buffalo National River.
The annual Kore Press Art Auction is coming up on March 9. See and bid on Eric's piece, imagine light, at Pastiche Modern Eatery, 3025 N. Campbell, Tucson.
Come to the unveiling event of only mountains : a permanent mirror poem installation at Casa Libre en la Solana on March 1, 2008 from 3:30 pm to 5:00 pm. Update: the unveiling went off with great success and you can now view only mountains permanently at Casa Libre. Click here for more information.
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