Poem by Gibbons Ruark plays a role in ‘Pretend’

Poet Gibbons Ruark

11 p.m., Feb. 29, 2004--According to Gibbons Ruark, “The minute you send a poem out into the world, you pretty much relinquish control of it. Someone, somewhere, is bound to misinterpret it and tape it to a grimy refrigerator. Quite a few others will see a blur of words better left unread. Still others will extend the metaphors found in the lines to fit their own creative vision.”

The last (and luckiest) of these scenarios is the one that recently befell Ruark, professor of English at UD, and his poem, “Words to Accompany a Bunch of Cornflowers,” a love poem he originally wrote for his wife.

Catching the imagination of screenwriter and director Julie Talen, Ruark’s poem now plays a part in her experimental independent film “Pretend,” where it is employed as an artistic device that expands upon a dominant visual theme.

“The film emphasizes the color blue, so the director of the film was looking for a poem that concentrated on that color,” Ruark explained. “Since cornflowers are vividly blue, Talen thought it was the perfect poem for a scene in the film when one of the characters—a poet and father of a missing child—goes out for a walk and composes a poem in his head.

“You just see the father out on a walk, muttering to himself, composing on the spot, and only five or six lines of the poem are spoken in an audible way,” Ruark said, “but it ties in well to the blue theme and also to the tangled relationship between the father and the mother.”

Ruark, who said he is pleased by the fact that his poem caught Talen’s attention after its appearance in the literary journal Ploughshares, said that he also is happy with the unique treatment of his poem.

“I think that it was used fairly,” he said. “Talen was very direct in how she wanted to use it in her film, and in the film, it’s the character’s poem. He has false starts and the words don’t come through intact until the last few lines, so the poem isn’t used in its entirety. But, it isn’t violated in any way.”

Besides reaping the benefits of an expanded audience, Ruark also was rewarded with a mention in the film credits and monetary compensation. “Talen also paid me, which never happens to a poet,” he said. “It was a nice experience altogether.”

The entire text of Ruark’s poem, “Words to Accompany a Bunch of Cornflowers,” can be found at [www.pshares.org/issues/article.cfm?prmArticleID=7240]. An interview with the creator of “Pretend,” which has been shown at independent film festivals around the country, can be found at [www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/04/30/julie_talen.html].

Ruark has been a member of the UD English faculty since 1968 and has published several anthologies of poetry. His latest collection, “Passing Through Customs: New and Selected Poems,” recently was praised by the noted poet and critic X.J. Kennedy, who said, “Gibbons Ruark is a master musician; our common language, his instrument. You would have to sift through the life’s work of a great many poets to find another hundred pages nearly as fine as these.”

Article by Becca Hutchinson

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