Last year I wrote a lot of poems in response to the big, bland, boring paintings of Agnes Martin. It began with a visit to a bookstore, during which I saw that a hardcover biography had been written and published about Martin. Vaguely, I recalled seeing her work at the Dia Art Foundation, near the end of a high school trip through the art galleries of New York City. Her paintings were simple and grid-like, often just one or two colours on the canvas. They were also roomy, which is to say, as big as rooms. I thought of them as room-sized doors, leading to new rooms, for brains in search of rest. I lingered in them. Then several fellow students barged in and made comments along the lines of, “I could have done that,” moving quickly on to the next station. Martin had nothing on the Monets, Picassos and Turners we had just seen at the Whitney and the MOMA. There was nothing impressive here. Just lines. Those of us who liked the grids kept quiet. The words to describe their appeal were beyond us at the time.
Looking at Martin’s biography in a bookstore years later, I wondered: How interesting could this artist possibly be? How could a whole book be filled with her life? Who would buy the book? Me, of course. I bought the book because I was curious.
How interesting a life? Moderately. Could you fill the whole book? Almost. Who would buy such a book? Few but the curious. Good, I thought. This means I have her to myself. I was now a seasoned poet, and the words were no longer beyond me. Poems about Martin’s paintings came to me easily.
