Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/20776
American Baroque BRIDGING WORLDS IMAGES When a biting easterly wind whips across central Montana, Clint Loomis will say, “Wind’s off the lake.” It’s an odd expression given that the largest body of water around here, Fort Peck Reservoir, is more than one hundred miles away. But, years ago, as a high school kid in Chicago, storm clouds would skid over the great city. Amid Chicago’s concrete and glass, he delighted in watching the storm, literally and poetically, bridge the worlds of earth and sky. DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL Like Loomis? Check out more poems and sketches! Go to www.distinctlymontana.com/loomis111 Roadhouse Blues Today, Loomis delights in thunderstorms that rage over central Montana’s hills and prairie. He says he’s always had an affinity for smells, sounds, textures, colors, and shapes. Now, as an artist and poet in Lewistown, it’s a vital tool for capturing such sensory details in his subject matter: land and cityscapes, and still life. Each image that he sees, likes, and re- tains, becomes something he must express, as either poet or painter. Typically the poet goes to work first. From his stanzas 38 AND CLINT LOOMIS BY CATHY MOSER comes inspiration for the painter who creates a companion painting, or visual, with watercolors, gouache, ink, pastels, colored pencils, or charcoal. Bridging worlds and images with words and paint is what Loomis’ art is all about. He calls it Visual Poetry. He admits it’s difficult to create companion art that explores the themes and characters in his poetry. If he reveals too much, he spoils the images the poem elicits. He laments that the poetry muse “comes only when she wants to” and only during prolonged periods of solitude. Loomis shares this philosophy, “What makes poetry fresh is not the subject matter, but the way poets shape images, bring the words next to each other. In an urban setting I look for metaphors between the feel- ings of the individuals in the poem and aspects in nature to bridge the two worlds. The same is true in central Montana. Many of my poems embrace an irony found in a larger world and couple it with the rich textured life in Lewistown.” He tells of an autumn day on the central Montana plain, of rolling his window down and feeling the bite of an easterly wind. “A cloud of sparrows beat its way across the road in front of the truck. I slowed, as I didn’t want to hit any. I have held little birds and their hearts beat so rapidly. I could just imagine the sparrows’ hearts racing. The ravens generally find humor in most things, but that day, even they struggled to stay the course.” DISTINCTLY MONTANA • WINTER 2011 THE ART OF