Poet B. Elizabeth Beck answers questions about Painted Daydreams (Accents Publishing, 2019)

Tell us the story of your Accents Publishing book. 

This book took ten years to research and write. I have studied and taught Art History for years, so this was a natural book for me to write. Art is my passion. To combine everything I love was a joy.

 

Do you still like it? Why or why not? 

I do still like it and am especially proud of the research notes included at the back of the book. Of course, I cannot take credit for the perfect formatting of those notes. Jay McCoy is such a good friend. He organized that work for me because he’s kind and generous and knows how to do these things correctly”.

 

What is the highest praise you’ve received for it? 

Matt Hart, a professor at the Art Academy in Cincinnati called my poems, “formally diverse and kaleidoscopically (allusionistically!) rich ekphrastic poems.” I consider that high praise!

 

What didn’t make it in the book? 

Interestingly, every poem that isn’t in this book didn’t make it. What I mean is that I wrote this collection while I was writing my first two books which were NOT art history books. Painted Daydreams was my escape while I was writing about very difficult poems. This was my book of joy.

 

Is there a poem from the book you’d like to share with the readers of the Accents blog?

 

In ancient Greece, Sophists

 

measure the existence of truth

as individual not universal; not absolute

Aristotle’s father and my grandfather

both physicians, yet Plato’s student blessed

with orphanage, blasphemous words

unless spoken by an insignificant girl.

I do not have the Oedipus privilege of gouging

my eyes I need to read Aristotle’s writings

on nature making him the world’s first scientist

 

when I am the last to understand and only learned

through Whitman’s leaves of grass transcendental

truth. I revere martyrs like Socrates executed

for corrupting youth and Holden Caulfield whose

merry-go-round Odyssean journey searching

an oracle in Phoebe futile; although the sentiment

 

appreciated as I practice Plato’s philosophy

of aesthetics, a branch he invented I teach

as an excuse to day dream in paintings

drenched in exuberance Van Gogh graces

the pages of the art history text I leaf ahead

(abandon Doric, Ionic, Corinthian) to look

at starry nights and potato eaters, again.

 

 

How did you arrive at the title? 

The title evolved from what I call Van Gogh’s paintings. I have been daydreaming in his art since I was seven years old.

 

Do you have a favorite Accents Publishing book (other than yours) and if so, which one? 

My favorite Accent Publishing book is “The Occupation” by Jay McCoy. His poems are stunningly brilliant.

 

What would you like to see Accents do going forward? 

Please continue to publish these beautiful books. Most importantly, please continue fostering writers. Without Poezia, I would never have published. I have learned so much about writing from being part of the Accents Publishing family.

 

What are you working on now?

I have just finished writing a novel about a young man named Sam who meets a group of kids and goes on tour with Phish. The working title is “Summer Tour”.

 

Share a poem, or at least a sentence from your new writing. 

“We were a new generation of seekers, intent in preserving the beauty of freedom from the Grateful Dead culture into a new evolution. Where it would lead was yet to be found, a fact that incited pure adrenaline; anticipation to join in what would be a remarkable slice of reality shaped between a guitar, bass, keys and drums performed by four ordinary dudes with extraordinary ideas. The fact that this tribe had found me and dragged me into this journey seemed destined. I couldn’t wait to swim among the sea of thousands of other like-minded people. I was ready for all things.”