For Art’s Sake is intended as a poetic tribute to the arts. Though each poem was written in its own time, responding to or echoing a particular art form, the organization and flow of the book is an intentional effort to integrate them into a single composition that is an homage to the creative arts. The poems weave among the arts in small groups of two, four or more, each small group responding to paintings, sculpture, music, dance, theater or poetry. Imagine entering a gallery where the art is on the wall or on pedestals with music playing in the background, and suddenly dancers enter the gallery and bring movement to respond to the music; performance artists mimic poses in the sculpture. Some of the art works or musical pieces have embedded poetry or dramatic pieces (think of “What a piece of work is man” in the musical “Hair.”) Themes echo both within the art forms (e.g. references to Chagall within specific poems) sometimes captured in the metaphors, once displayed in the form of the poem itself. The flow moves from mood to mood, like moving on to rooms in a gallery where themes or styles are captured. The collection closes with the poet’s self-effacing humor, laughing a bit at himself and his pretensions. Overall, the book is not structured enough to be considered a symphony, but it is an integrated composition.
