There Are People Who Say That Painters Shouldn't Talk: A GUSTONBOOK

Poetry. Written in and around the Spring of 2009, composed of short, fragmentary blocks of verse and prose, including several quoted sources, GUSTONBOOK is a workman's notebook of sorts sketched out in response to several years spent contemplating the work and life of painter Philip Guston in relation to the ongoing world, i.e., exhibitions, books on/about Guston, other books/art works amid daily walks, drinks, and talks. More explorations than explanations, the entries contained herein situate the eye of memory as witness to the immediate surrounds of now: day to day, hour by hour, the concern never (always) changing. As Guston once said, gesturing out the window, "Who wants that? and you can't have it anyway."