for David and George

Acnowledgements

Provençal Light, in its entirety, appeared in Prospice (England).

Special thanks to Dale Hobson.

Preface

t its earliest conception, I imagined this sequence would consist of dramatic monologues, each poem shaped as conversation, disclosing the past in pieces as we do when we speak with friends. Although the sequence does not begin until the time we recognize as Van Gogh's artistic peak, during his stay at Arles, the important moments of his prior biography are kneaded with acts and thoughts of the poems' present. This method may present some difficulty to readers unfamiliar with Van Gogh's life; I have included brief biographical notes at the end of the sequence.
The diction, vocabulary, and syntax of the poems were influenced by Van Gogh's own letters, which shift without preparation from highly technical discussions to the personal, and which range in diction within a sentence or two from the elevated to the colloquial--a choice reinforced by the way levels of diction and tone do alter rapidly in ordinary conversation. That Whitman was one of Van Gogh's favorite writers provided a clue to the long line.
My hope throughout was to communicate a sense of Van Gogh's personality, the drive that propelled him to paint, as expressed in the biographies and his letters but most importantly in his paintings. In addition to reading, I was fortunate enough to study the St. Rémy and Auvers show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and, later, to visit both the Rijksmuseum Vincent Van Gogh in Amsterdam and the Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller in Otterlo. The actual canvasses convey an intensity that even the best reproductions miss. The trowelled impasto, the almost sculpted brush strokes, and even the dirt driven into the pigment express more of Van Gogh's character than that part of himself he could wrench into his letters. However openly we approach the page, some part of us realizes the danger of over-disclosure and, I think, unconsciously affixes a mask, determines a persona which edits what we write. In conversation, particularly exhausted, inebriated conversation, we dislodge some of our built-in censoring mechanisms a little more than we might otherwise. Therefore, I chose conversation to express the Van Gogh who spoke so clearly through his paintings where he'd thrown all masks aside.
I owe a debt of gratitude to the many friends who have read the poems in this sequence through their various drafts, offering criticism and encouragement, most notably Hayden Carruth, David Dooley, George Drew, Terry Keenan, Katharyn Howd Machan, and Lisa Rukeyser.

Syracuse, New York -- Ithaca, New York -- King of Prussia, Pennsylvania 1987-1997