Work-in-Progress: Peter Markus
In his poem, “Sunday Night,” Raymond Carver writes, “Make use of the world around you.”
Carver talks about the rain outside the window, the cigarette burning in his hand, the music he is listening to, the woman bumping around drunkenly in the kitchen.
“Make use,” he tells us, he tells himself. “Put it all in.”
I listened to Carver’s advice. It’s advice I’ve long given to others.
It’s important that we practice what we preach. For the last year leading up to my father’s death, the world around me was contained by this sentence, its presence in my life, and its recurrence every time I sat down to write.
My father is dying in a house across the river.
Every page I wrote during this time made use of that recurrence, even after my father died. These poems are from that collection, When Our Fathers Return to Us as Birds.
In response to social isolation guidelines, Kresge Arts in Detroit asked Kresge Artist Fellows and Gilda Award recipients to give us a glimpse into their current and recent projects. Participating artists received stipends of $150, a quick response pivot of resources that could be implemented by the program as an immediate - albeit small level - of support to Detroit area artists.