Word & Image, a new class at Cooper Union

[The room is dark.  Black and white 1940s snapshot on a screen up front. I write.]

I loved him that summer.  Afterwards too but the time we met at camp when everything was secret... it's very hard to describe.  Years later I found this photo when it was too late to ask him why this one.  You cannot see my excitement in being close to him.  I'm surprised I could fall asleep when we were together.

He'd let the boat drift into the middle of the lake.  He didn't know what a bad swimmer I was.  And I'd lied when he asked if I'd be okay if we went out to the middle.

But it turned out that he had lied in a much deeper way to me.

This was the second of six photos shown in "Word and Image," a new continuing education class at Cooper Union. Susan Landry, writer and cofounder of  "Lifeboat: A Journal of Memoir" and Stacy Morrison, photographer and photo artist, who met in a another Cooper class, designed the six-week class for those who want to integrate photography and text.  Among the images we viewed and wrote about were famous, found, and personal photos.

This photo belongs to Susan's family.  Through my lens it became a scene from a play, an exchange years later between the boy and girl. What would you write?   

 

Comments

[Heather]

I would write this:

The tinsel was my favorite part. I hated waiting till the last minute to drape the little strings of decadence on our tree each year. I would giggle and giggle as the static pulled them back to me. My little brother never did get the brilliance of the tinsel and would just throw it at the tree. When my parents and him would not be looking I would fix his mess. My mom always swore we would not use tinsel the following Christmas as she found yet another string while spring cleaning. I loved finding those pieces of Christmas. No matter what I would be doing at that moment of discovery, I would instantly feel all the warm feelings that it had soaked up while sparkling my little world.

I am interning at a Children's grief centre in Toronto right now. I have always felt that pictures were powerful, but I am learning of a different kind of power than I had known. I would have loved to have joined that class.

Heather

[susan]

i love that you are doing this; perfectly extends the intent and concept as we had hoped for in offering this class...! (A+ for you!)

[judy lombardi]

I always wanted what my brother got for xmas
we played for hours with his new erector set
building a robot that didn't work
until we said a hail mary.

[Virginia]

what a wonderful way to suggest writing ideas. I love this!

[Judith Shapiro]

this is lovely stuff - merging of what, for me, are powerfully compelling forms - i love to wallow in photos and words. last night my daughter described a poetry assignment based on an unseen photo. More and more ways to wallow. How will I ever get this laptop off my lap now?