On Thursday, Nov. 21, Otto Selles, professor of French and chair of World Languages and Visual and Performing Arts, presented his new book, Matins, a collection of poems paired with family photos, paintings by his sister and photos by Jennifer Steensma Hoag, professor of photography.
The event was hosted in Calvin’s Center Art Gallery in the Covenant Fine Art Center (CFAC). At the start of the event, only standing room remained; students and other community members gathered together in support of Selles and his work.
Benita Wolters-Fredlund, dean for the School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, introduced Selles at the event, saying, “Otto [Selles] is about as close to a Renaissance man as we are likely to find in our modern era.” She noted that “tonight, we are here not only to celebrate a new book, but to give thanks for the many ways Otto’s [Selle’s] gifts have enriched our community as [a] teacher, artist, writer and friend. This collection feels like an invitation to remember, to pay attention, to smile at all the small absurdities of life and to see our days in the light of something larger than ourselves.”
At the event, Selles explained that the book is divided into four sections: “Memento,” “Lovesong,” “Acrobats” and “Rainbow Forest.” Chimes had the opportunity to talk with Selles about the structure, inspiration and backstory of his book.
The book
Selles told Chimes that the first section, “Memento,” focuses on topics including how you come face-to-face with death, sometimes in your family, as a child, and the ways those memories stay with you. In this section, the poems stand alongside family photographs. Selles noted that having the photos next to the poems helped create new levels of meaning. “In the poem ‘Record’ that I read, … I struggled with [it] because … it started off as a story of dropping my ‘Horton Hears A Who’ Dr. Seuss record and cracking [it]. [Then I] think, okay, this poem is going nowhere. But then, by connecting it to the picture, I had another record — a visual record — and then the poem itself is a record … it allows for different levels of seeing and understanding.”
The next section, “Lovesong,” is Selles’ collaboration with Steensma Hoag. Steensma Hoag’s photos feature the beginnings of construction sites and partially built buildings. She noted that the collaboration started when she was searching for poetry to accompany her collection of photographs, and Selles then created poems to accompany them.
Selles stressed the importance of having visual art accompany his poems, saying, “I love the interplay between image and text. … So when you can put them together, you get it where the image and the word bounce off each other.” Steensma Hoag also noted the importance of visual art working with written word to reach new audiences. “When disciplines are in silos, they’re only talking to the same audiences over and over again,” she said. “So when you broaden that and you bring in a larger community, I think it can enrich the interpretation of the work.” Steensma Hoag said that they “both liked the idea of our work being able to exist independently, but then when it came together, it formed something new.”
The next section, “Acrobats,” features what Selles referred to as “more of looking at day-to-day life — whether it’s in my family or just the things around me — whether a glass of water or … a table setting or my kids.” Selles noted that he wanted this section to have a less serious feeling compared to the topics of the first section. “I really wanted it to be lighter while still addressing questions of transition … as my kids got older,” he said.
The final section, “Rainbow Forest,” featured paintings by Selles’ sister, Geraldine Selles-Ysselstein, as a “part of a Psalm festival that was here at Calvin years ago.” “[I] did paintings in response to Psalms, and then I did a poem in response to her painting.”
Selles stressed his desire to balance serious topics with wit. “I want poetry to address the deepest questions in life, but I think it also can be a vehicle for humor,” he said. “It’s very hard to do serious and funny.”
Steensma Hoag said that she hopes attendees of the event had a chance to experience “a more expansive view about art in general. … I think the majority of people who went there were either in support of Otto, in terms of this community, or they were fans of poetry. So I hope that they also just enjoyed his wonderful poetry, but got to see how other visual arts also intersect with that and maybe spurred some curiosity in terms of that work.”
Student reactions
Alanna Rohl, a junior majoring in recreational therapy, noted that she wanted to learn more about other professors’ interests, her father being a professor in the history department. “Because my dad is a professor, I see a lot of his passion, and I’m curious to see what passion other professors have,” she said. “I know a lot of different professors; they take the work very seriously, and they get disappointed when students don’t have as much passion as they do.”
Ava Vandlen, a freshman majoring in French education, said she attended the event because Selles is “a really great teacher, and I just wanted to make sure that I could be there to support him and his accomplishments, and I thought it would be a really great opportunity to be able to hear some poem entries as well.” Vandlen felt that in light of recent changes at the university, including cutting the French major and minor, the event had a more somber feeling than was likely originally planned. “[It] was honestly a little emotional because of everything that’s happened lately … But also, I think I just took away all the hard work that he put into this book and how proud he was of it and [of] all the different people’s work, like his sister’s artwork and the photographer’s photos that went into it as well.”
