Poem: Snow Falls Thick

Carolyn Campbell, "Response to Snow Falls Thick"

In the exhibition, "What the Wind Taught Me: An Exhibit of Visual Art & Poetry in Conversation," is Carolyn Campbell's textile art piece "Response to Snow Falls Thick" which is in response to the poem "Snow Falls Thick" by Maria Mazziotti Gillan. The exhibition is at the Tioga Arts Council’s (TAC) gallery located at 179 Front St. in Owego, NY.

Carolyn Campbell states, "My inspiration for this wall hanging is the beautiful poem, "Snow Falls Thick," by Maria Mazziotti Gillan.  There are so many images in this memory that Maria is sharing. I was drawn to the windows frosted with ice, the smell of baking bread and the warmth of being in a familiar place... the coziness of a kitchen. All these images led me to reflect on being in the kitchen and how much time we spend there and how many memories are made there. In deciding to keep it simple, I finally decided on the image of the hands and the act of giving."

Ekphrastic poetry describes visual art; it’s a practice in Western culture at least as old as Homer’s description of Achilles’ shield in the Iliad. The dialogue between visual artists and poets has led to some of our greatest art. In the tradition of ekphrasis, TAC assembled artwork created in and around Tioga County and paired it with poetic responses to that work for its first ekphrastic exhibit in March 2021. This year, they did the reverse. Participating artists were provided a poem and asked to create an original artwork based on that poem. 

Snow Falls Thick

outside the windows of Saint Marguerite retreat house.

If only my mother had not died more than 20 years ago, I'd call her,

tell her, my practical, no-nonsense mother, to stop working

long enough to look out into the softening December world,

here in this peaceful place where no sound enters.

Memory, that savvy Trickster, pulls me back

to the 17th Street kitchen with its coal stove 

and sweet, bread-baking aroma.

It is 1947. We are having a huge blizzard

and all the windows in our apartment frost over in patterns

that seem to me to be exquisitely beautiful.

My mother gives me a potato fresh from the oven.

I hold the hot potato, its crunchy skin, in my hand,

and I realize how much more my mother offered

when she gave me that warmth to hold in my hands.

by Maria Mazziotti Gillan, from When the Stars Were Still Visible

The artists represented in the exhibition are from the southern tier of New York. Several poets are local, from Owego, Binghamton, and Ithaca. Others come from across the nation including Washington D.C., New Jersey, Virginia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Maine. Richard Blanco, who President Barack Obama selected in 2012 to serve as the fifth presidential inaugural poet in U.S. history, generously granted TAC permission to include his poem, “Cloud Anthem,” in this show. Each artist approached the poem they engaged with from a different angle. There are 16 artists and 16 poets featured in this exhibition.

Information is available online at www.tiogaartscouncil.org/exhibitions 

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Maria Mazziotti Gillan's new poetry collection is When the Stars Were Still Visible (2021). Other recent publications are the poetry and photography collection, Paterson Light and Shadow and the poetry collections What Blooms in Winter and The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets which pairs her poems with her paintings. Maria's artist's website is MariaMazziottiGillan.com and her poetry website is MariaGillan.com.