How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird by Jacques Prévert illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein

You know how hosts put out chips and dip or bowls of nuts at a party, not just to nibble, but to give people something to talk about? What do you think of this cheese? Want an olive? Etc. Well, it wouldn’t do much for those truly hungry, but putting out some picture books might be just as good for conversation. When I teach children’s literature I often bring picture books I’ve gathered from the library on the front table, books not on the syllabus, and early students often gravitate to them while waiting for class to begin. Knowing this, I brought a few to a creative writing class for adults I taught this fall. How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird was snatched up by two who got rather glowy. 



Mordicai Gerstein, illustrator of many picture books including the Caldecott Medal winning The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, illustrated his translation of a poem about creativity by Jacques Prévert, a French poet and screenwriter.
Here’s some of another translation.

First paint a cage
with an open door
then paint
something pretty
something simple
something beautiful
something useful
for the bird
then place the canvas against a tree
in a garden
in a wood
or in a forest
hide behind the tree
without speaking
without moving...
Sometimes the bird comes quickly
but he can just as well spend long years
before deciding...

(click here to read the whole poem)

Mordicai Gerstein’s picture book, which would make a great present for a creative adult as well as child, brings the theme of imagination to life with its flowing lines, gorgeous colors, and hither-and-yon-flying bird. In this book, the “something pretty and useful” are a golden swing and a heap of seeds and nuts, which take a long while to entice. And waiting is shown as a big part of the creative process. We see mistakes, triumph, the arc of beginning again, and we see the bird in every picture, even when the artist doesn’t. The young painter’s canvas becomes transparent at some points, so there’ no edge between it and the world. I don’t know if this will match anyone’s creative process completely, but I think it will spur many to be on the watch for birds of all kinds, and be ready with a paintbrush or pen.

For some details on Mordicai Gerstein’s process, sometimes a roller coaster ride, sometimes like being a tightrope walker, click on his name  link above to his website where you can read his Caldecott Acceptance speech. What a special gift it was, more than sixty years after he stood before his first easel, and still full of ideas that wanted expressing.

For more Poetry Friday posts, please visit the roundup at the Poem Farm.