I am convinced that the Gospel is for all of life and ought to fuel the soul as well as the imagination. To that end, I regularly try to set aside some time and space each Friday to encourage the pursuit of creativity. I try to do this in a couple of different ways. I regularly link to Joe Kennedy, Will Turner, Timmy Brister, Steve McCoy, Joe Thorn, who post photographs on Fridays, along with the Friday Flickr Group in which they participate. I also often highlight a poet (who may or may not be Christian, but who above all, uses words well) and I highlight a musical artist who makes at least one track available for free and legal download or a video and recently, I’ve begun highlighting an artist along with at least one piece of their artwork.

Today’s featured poet is Natasha Trethewey (1966-). Trethewey won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for her 2006 collection “Native Guard.” Today’s poem is called “Letter Home:”

Four weeks have passed since I left, and still
I must write to you of no work. I’ve worn down
the soles and walked through the tightness
of my new shoes calling upon the merchants,
their offices bustling. All the while I kept thinking
my plain English and good writing would secure
for me some modest position Though I dress each day
in my best, hands covered with the lace gloves
you crocheted–no one needs a girl. How flat
the word sounds, and heavy. My purse thins.
I spend foolishly to make an appearance of quiet
industry, to mask the desperation that tightens
my throat. I sit watching–

though I pretend not to notice–the dark maids
ambling by with their white charges. Do I deceive
anyone? Were they to see my hands, brown
as your dear face, they’d know I’m not quite
what I pretend to be. I walk these streets
a white woman, or so I think, until I catch the eyes
of some stranger upon me, and I must lower mine,
a negress again. There are enough things here
to remind me who I am. Mules lumbering through
the crowded streets send me into reverie, their footfall
the sound of a pointer and chalk hitting the blackboard
at school, only louder. Then there are women, clicking
their tongues in conversation, carrying their loads
on their heads. Their husky voices, the wash pots
and irons of the laundresses call to me.

I thought not to do the work I once did, back bending
and domestic; my schooling a gift–even those half days
at picking time, listening to Miss J–. How
I’d come to know words, the recitations I practiced
to sound like her, lilting, my sentences curling up
or trailing off at the ends. I read my books until
I nearly broke their spines, and in the cotton field,
I repeated whole sections I’d learned by heart,
spelling each word in my head to make a picture
I could see, as well as a weight I could feel
in my mouth. So now, even as I write this
and think of you at home, Goodbye

is the waving map of your palm, is
a stone on my tongue.

• Read Wikipedia’s page dedicated to Tretheway
• Read Natasha Trethewey for yourself
  

Today’s featured visual artist is Ron Mueck (1958-). Mueck is what is known as a “hyperrealist” sculpture. He bagan his career as a model maker and puppeteer for children’s programs, particularly the movie Labyrinth. Since then he has specialized in the advertising industry as well as branching out into the art world. Muek’s sculptures specialized in minute detail, yet playing with scale to create jarring visual juxtapositions.

• Visit Wikipedia’s page dedicated to Mueck
• Visit Taylor Worley’s thoughts on Mueck’s Scotland exhibition
• Browse Ron Mueck items at Amazon

Today’s featured musical artist is one of my absolute personal favorites (you can always see what I hear here), Miles Davis (1926-1991), especially in light of yesterday’s fun feature of Thelonious Monk. You could make a very credible argument that no single individual has done more to shape jazz than Miles Davis. He was continually at the forefront of many major shifts and continues to be recognized as a major musical figure, not just in jazz circles.

Today’s first feature is a video performance of “So What” from 1958 featuring both Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

This second clip is “No Blues” from 1964, performed on the Steve Allen show:

• Visit Wikipedia’s page dedicated to Miles Davis
• Listen to Miles Davis for yourself
• Download Miles Davis from eMusic.