"Noah Purifoy poetry, desert art, sculpture and photographs"

Seeing 1967

"Poetry is pouring out your insides," he says. The poem, Seeing (1967), suggests why his work has influenced younger artists, including John Outerbridge and Betye Saar, for it reads like a credo for the socially-conscious artist Purifoy is, as well as a rationale for assemblage:

As always a new way of seeing things
But what and how?
There were no lakes or ponds
No oceans or streams with seagulls soaring.
No beach sand or sailboats
Or bright buildings or broad streets.
But there was junk-piles of junk
All bundled up and neatly packaged;
Scattered out down the railroad track
Glowing brightly in the absence of sunlight
And thus not glowing brightly.
Neat bright bundles pressed hard, piled high;
Beer can, shattered glass, bottle tops flat-out,
Foreign object lying there without relationship
To self or any other, aged forms,
Banked up inactivity. Meaningless existence?
If I could see it differently
For what it is or is not
Still flat out and piled up
In another way yet the same way
I'd offer it up.
Then Free I'd be from guilt for letting it pile up
And scatter out, and separate itself
.......from itself.

This Noah Purifoy poetry is from an article by Abby Wasserman, reprinted from The Museum of California Magazine, Summer 1998.

Thank you for the gracious permission from Sue Welsh, of The Noah Purifoy Foundation, to share these poems with you.

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last updated: 10 Mar 08