Mischa Willett

New poem in Grain Magazine

Mischa Willett — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:30:17 +0000

Print by Cate Francis

I’m pleased to announce the publication of Grain: the journal of eclectic writing, which features my poem “Hard to Get.” In due time, I’ll post the poem to this website, but for now, I’m proud to be in the fine company of the poets Alissa Gordaneer, Andrew Torry, and Laura Trunkey, all with amazing illustration from Cate Francis.

This is a pretty little magazine whose print runs often sell out–rare for an art journal, but there it is. If you’d like to get a copy, I suggest ordering one from directly from the publisher here, or, if you are lucky enough to be near a bookstore that stocks such things, support them by picking one up.

Analog

Mischa Willett — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 17:41:52 +0000

I’ve started this blog.

(photo by H Matthew Howarth)

Really, it’s just a place to shoot my mouth off. Go.

Venet Vici

Mischa Willett — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:48:00 +0000

As with nearly every other spot on the ever expanding tourist map, Versailles is a place no longer to be beheld, still less to be awed by, or disgusted by—depending on the strength go one’s constitution, and the romance attached to her sense of history—but a place to be captured, recorded, digitized, and filed: less under the heading I was here, than under veni vidi, vici.

It is not a matter of course, though perhaps it is not surprising to hear the Versailles defies such capture, if not by its opulence, which can be rendered through a pictorial study of it’s minutiae, but by its sheer size. Even 1300 frames of similarly-proportioned gilt chambers do not convey the monstrosity, the monotony even, of winding through its miles of royal residence. Still, ten million visitors every year try, and if the mob on the day of my visit is indicative, 95% do not remove their eyes from the viewfinders of their handheld recording devices.

Versailles is an interesting place because for all its attempts at intimidation—it was a state headquarters designed in large part to reign in rogue nobles—it is surprisingly un-monumental. For all its marble and gold, it is surprisingly homey; cute even. Given all this, Bernard Venet is a pretty smart choice as this year’s artist-in-residence to display on the grounds. Unlike the Jeff Koons exhibit last year, which was, as always, an awful, tacky, and wierd-ly perfect sprinkling of the proverbial confettii (life is a cabaret!), Venet’s work seeks first to understand and then to participant in that enormity.

Aesthetic intimidation isn’t much a tactic the modern mind is overwhelmed by anymore…seeing the Sun-king on a gold horse at the entry of the gates feels kind of royal, but not exactly impressive, still less god-like, or sublime. Venet has gone about his project in a smart way then, by re-interpreting the scale of Versailles in standards that still provoke: if 1300 rooms in a row doesn’t make the jaw drop, 1300 tons of unfinished steel still can. A rusted arch large enough to cradle a suburban house says something about scale that was once conveyed by two enclosed stories in stone. In the age of the discount skyscraper, no one thinks “wow!” when confronted with the spectacle of a three story building, no matter how much gold tops the fence without, but set in the lens of Venet’s concentric arches, piled up in corners of the gardens like Valhallan horseshoes, one shivers with the original excess thinking at once, all that weight, all that waste, what’s the point and wow, which is what you’re supposed to have been saying all along

New article on Bernini at Curator Magazine

Mischa Willett — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 15:12:08 +0000

Near where the peasant girl is being raped, and in the same room as another attempt, there stands in the Villa Borghese, a stone David facing a Goliath we can’t see. In a city where the classical and Christian collide, bristle, fizz, and even combine, these galleries, and this sculpture stand out as strange for that monstrous marriage…

http://www.curatormagazine.com/mischa-willett/david%E2%80%99s-dropped-stone/

A Medieval Roman Theology; Abridged

Mischa Willett — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:09:24 +0000

We killed

this Jesus,

and shook

him, and these

keys fell out.

This poem was originally published in Inch: Tiny Poems number 4 edited by Ross White.

(available http://inch.bullcitypress.com/)

Letter to the Editor

Mischa Willett — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:54:39 +0000

A letter I sent to the Editor of Poetry Magazine in response to a review written by (the usually very good) D.H. Tracy, about what is probably my favorite poetry book of all time. Read it on their website here:

Letter to the Editor by Mischa Willett.

Poetry Reading Poster

Mischa Willett — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 11:26:28 +0000

In August, I gave a poetry reading at the Phinney Ridge Community Center whose advertisement was designed by my talented friend Mark Selander at Machines and Humans. Several people commented on the poster, so I thought I’d post it. Check out more of Mark’s work here: www.machinesandhumans.com

Art Project Sonnet 73

Mischa Willett — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 13:04:25 +0000

Graphic Designer Dave Richardson has made a project on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 73 using my reading from Poems for the People as the soundtrack.

Check it out:

Sonnet 73

Mnemesis

Mischa Willett — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:56:52 +0000

I get it all the time:
you know who you look
like? Scipio Africanus,
the Roman general who
finally defeated Hannibal
and his elephants
to close the Punic
trouble.

It doesn’t bother me,
usually, but I do tire
of hearing the history bit.
Hannibal and the elephants!
As if I could forget!

This poem was first published in Mare Nostrum, edited by Kevin Craft.

Unto Thyself Any Graven Images: A Review

Mischa Willett — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 10:54:59 +0000

My review of the new book Blake and the Bible, from Yale University Press is out in the new issue of Books and Culture and up on the website here:

http://www.booksandculture.com/articles/2011/novdec/untothyself.html