Poetry Challenge: Optical Order

In addition to being an artist, Markus Lüpertz was a poet. Throughout the exhibition, share your Lüpertz-inspired poems with us to win prizes. Every other week, we’ll issue a new poetry challenge based on images or themes in the exhibition for fresh inspiration and chances to win.

Installation view of Markus Lüpertz at The Phillips Collection. Photo: Lee Stalsworth

THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE:
Rather than chronologically, the Markus Lüpertz exhibition is organized in an optical order (more on this in a previous blog post). Write a short poem describing your response to the way Lüpertz’s works are displayed and arranged in this installation.

THIS WEEK’S PRIZE: An Individual membership to The Phillips Collection.

TO ENTER: Leave your poem in the comments here, or share on social media with #LupertzPoem. We’ll select winners on Friday, September 1.

**UPDATE: The winning poem was submitted by Rebecca B:

Walking into a room
A city
A town
A crowd
We do not simply
Walk
Into the present moment
With painted past
And indistinct future
We enter a space
Filled with
Light
Color
Voices
Feelings.
Because we enter
Through a doorway
Does not mean
We should expect
A way
We have already felt
We have already faced.

10 thoughts on “Poetry Challenge: Optical Order

  1. (In the format of Japanese Tanka)

    Forward- Don’t Look

    Flouting time’s order
    paintings meander on walls
    I’ll show my lover
    how the beauty of progress
    is not chronological

  2. Challenge

    I’m Stop
    Look back
    There was color now it’s mono
    Stop
    Ahead
    Nazi crimes then abstract figures
    Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop

    • Challenge

      Stop
      Look back
      There was color now it’s mono
      Stop
      Ahead
      Nazi crimes the abstract figures
      Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop

  3. inside the tension
    between figuration and abstraction
    between dramatic reference and creative manipulation
    between skulls and helmets
    between landscapes and classical mythology
    i rebel and find my voice

  4. Walking into a room
    A city
    A town
    A crowd
    We do not simply
    Walk
    Into the present moment
    With painted past
    And indistinct future
    We enter a space
    Filled with
    Light
    Color
    Voices
    Feelings.
    Because we enter
    Through a doorway
    Does not mean
    We should not expect
    A way
    We have already felt
    We have already faced.

    • EDIT:
      Walking into a room
      A city
      A town
      A crowd
      We do not simply
      Walk
      Into the present moment
      With painted past
      And indistinct future
      We enter a space
      Filled with
      Light
      Color
      Voices
      Feelings.
      Because we enter
      Through a doorway
      Does not mean
      We should expect
      A way
      We have already felt
      We have already faced.

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