Beneath the Midi Sun, Jim and Carol McCord
Shanti Arts LLC, 2020
The book opens with a photograph of what looks like an ordinary mountain cliff. With the help of the accompanying poem, “Out Our Back Window,” and upon further inspection, we see with new sight the various life forms beyond the back patio. The speaker tells us: “Over all a serene / rock face gazes.” The relationship of object and subject shifts, as we find ourselves being watched by the landscape and becoming the object of its curious gaze. Unfazed, the poet looks back and begins to see the particulars of this “rock face:” “Its brow / ripped with age, scar / on right cheek, eyes the / homes of crag martins / to roost in the darkness before / they take frenzied flight / to feast in day’s light.”
With curiosity and openness, a large-heartedness for the world around them, they travel and live in places such Greece, Spain, Portugal, France, and England. Carol takes photographs and Jim writes poems. It’s not clear which came first, the photos or the poems, but what is clear is the care and attention, the respect they bestow upon the subjects of their camera and poetic lenses. Nature and place thus serve as a catalyst for their art and interest .
As we journey with the McCords, we encounter places rich with history. We witness the persecution of the Cathars during Pope Innocent III’s crusade. Photographs of castles shrouded in fog and under brilliant blue skies and macabre gargoyles provide us glimpses into this world. The poems give voice to the actors in this series of religious warfare during Europe’s Medieval Age. In “Rage of a Crusader,” the speaker of the poem attempts to justify his hatred for the “other”: “Heretics who blaspheme with viper’s tongue / our Roman Church . . . They dare call Jehovah murderer, / our savior a harlot’s lover, his body common / bread.” In the mind of this crusader, atrocities must be committed for such blasphemies. The poem ends with the following horrific promise: “We’ll make / kindling of their tindery robes, flesh, / bones for radiant fires of damnation.”
Immediately following this poem is “Defense of a Heretic,” where a Cather explains his people’s quiet and peaceful life, one that is devoid of the pageantry of the Church and in harmony with nature: “We meet without ceremony in weaver’s shops, / speak civilly, abhor war. Sandals on our feet, / coarse robes our clothing, our women and men / equal. We eat what greens earth offers, drink /what milk our animals give.”
Such tension and conflict come to a close with Carol’s photograph of “Cathar Dove,” a dove literally carved out of a stone, the luminescent blue sky its body. Here, art and photography concludes the conflict with a message of peace and hope for renewal and new beginnings.
The McCords also document contemporary life in southern France. “Ceret Market Day” is a delight to read because of its humor and playfulness, where the farmers and sellers are described based on their wares: “This morning a yogurt girl tiny as her jar, / Catalan butcher with sausage fingers,/ stuffed ravioli woman and crusty baker. / Oval-faced poulter with beak for nose, / cheesy husband and creamy wife, / sweet flipper of savory crepes.” We are what we do, the poet tells us. And we can’t help but notice the good humor and inventiveness in the poet’s use of language and imagery in contrast to Carol’s quiet photograph of people and produce in the Ceret Market.
“Country Dining” talks of “common fare and country / manners at Café de Pays where they serve / local wines to wash down local meat/ bread fresh from Le Pain Levain around / the corner, fruit plucked from nearby /orchards, greens from roadsides. Flavors / natural like ailment from paradise.” The food is fresh, local, delicious and healthy, and the owners “greet / you with the warmth of an old friend.” The accompanying photo of the restaurant’s placard is simple and elegant, without the fancy footwork of modern advertisement, befitting of this quiet, remote place.
Throughout Beneath the Midi Sun are photographs and poems of hillsides, mountaintops, and streams, of bridges, sculptures and statues, of crosses, steeples, and tree trunks, of an ancient amphitheater and public bathhouse, of a snow-covered playground and snow-capped roots. The fascination and respect for their subjects is clear in these photographic and poetic gazes. The book also meditates on old age, death, and dying, poems about and photographic imaginings of the final days of Cezanne and Renoir. In “William Blake Visits Vincent van Gogh” we hear an imagined conversation between the romantic painter, printmaker, poet, and visionary and the great post-impressionist painter. The madness and humor can only be conveyed by reading this poem out loud.
The book is ultimately about relationships—poetry and photography, past and present, enemies and friends, nature and culture, earth and sky, summer and winter, life and death, et al. The central relationship in this book is of course the friendship of husband and wife, Jim and Carol. In “Dolmen Huntress,” the poet paints a picture of his wife and fellow conspirator at work searching for “the bare-bones / of stone, the way they stand, / lean, have fallen.” She is not only interested in how and why these megaliths were built and for what funeral purposes, she revels in the great mystery of man and his place in the cosmos. The poet thus concludes: “Praise be / the mysteries of rock and man.” The accompanying photo is bare, empty of ego and human interest. In fact, the perspective is that of the dolmen itself, looking out at the world. Our lens is shifted once again. And this is what good arts should do. Our perspective shifts and new understandings about the world and our place in it emerge.
