World spinning dark in trembled night– morning returns and still no light except in fiery landscape, stark. An emptied people, desperate flight from history’s repeated arc– in trembled night, world spinning, dark.
This collage was done for the Kick-About prompt inspired by the work of artist John Stezaker. I took Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, cut it up, and inserted it into works by Monet, Gauguin, Matisse and Homer. This pairing is with one of Monet’s water lilies paintings.
The poem is, like many of the responses to the dverse prompt of the sparrowlet form (introduced to us by Grace), inspired by world events.
And in a bit of serendipity, one of my poems is included in The Ekphrastic Review ebook of responses to Van Gogh’s Starry Night, which you can download here. My thanks to editor Lorette C. Luzajic for her continued support of my work and of Ekphrastic writing.
I wanted to note three recent publications, all a bit strange in the manner of many of my collages.
Two actually were collages, a couple of older ones, one based on one of Jane’s Sunday Strange Microfiction Challenges that for some reason I never posted. You can find them here, in Otoliths.
I also had a poem published in last month’s visual verse, part of the final postings of the month. Thanks to Manja, for letting me know. You can read it here. I’m number 86. Take a look at Manja’s too, number 100.
And a strange poem for a strange painting at The Ekphrastic Review, posted today, here.
Why must we always quantify? 4, 3, 10. Add, subtract, multiply. Divide.
My prose poem, Aggregated, based on a painting by Hilma af Klint, was among those selected as a finalist in The Ekphrastic Review Women Artists contest. You can read the entire poem and see all the finalists here. The three winning selections are here.
a prisoner of gravity, it remains forever outside of dreams
unfit for the spiritship, a vessel of startled complexity– open, unbounded, secret, extreme
I wrote the original version (much revised) of the above 42 poem at the same time I wrote my haibun, Unattached, which is published on The Ekphrastic Review today, along with Jane’s lyrical poem, Bronze Dreams, and other varied responses to Frida Kahlo’s painting, The Dream.
My collage is once again based on a tarot card, this the the Four of Swords. Kahlo’s paining reminded me very much of the iconic Rider-Waite card, but my own interpretation drifts in between the card and the painting. I could not find out if Kahlo ever studied tarot, but she was friends with many of the Surrealists, who certainly played with its symbolism. The Four of Swords is a card of restoration and healing, just like Frida’s Dream.
I placed a photo of the interior of an Egyptian sarcophagus in the sky. The figure painted there is the sky goddess Nut, who “spreads out her arms protectively to receive the deceased. (s)He is sheltered by her, is adsorbed into her body, and emerges reborn” (Rose-Marie and Rainer Hagen, “Egypt”).
You can read my poem (and Jane’s) here. My thanks once again to editor Lorette C. Luzajic for supporting my work and the interaction between the visual and written arts.
Perhaps the rain and windstorm of Christmas Eve is a beginning towards washing away the darkness of 2020. Of course, as the Oracle reminds us, it’s never that simple.
I was pleased to have 3 pieces selected for The Ephrastic Review’s Christmas day post: Weathering, Our Lady of Toil and Trouble, and Mari Lwyd. You can read them here
away from the rain shadows still ache with light storms rip together apart
yet sea and sky sing roses in the mothertongue of the moon
Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, by Jean Fouquet (France) 1452-1458
She did not seek this role. She contemplated her pose, the way her body was placed rigidly on the dais inside the carefully staged script. Why had they shaved her head, bleached her skin until it reflected like the porcelain doll they placed on the stiff folds of her heavy cape? Who had created this idea of an infant, disproportionate and so unlike any real child?
The crown, heavy and ill-suited to her countenance, threatened to tumble from its uneasy perch. As did her entire being from the painted backdrop, so eerie and haunted—the flattened throne, the red demon angels who lacked either substance or joy. The wall behind it all, painted blue to match her skimpy dress, conjured no images of either nature or heavenly dream.
And why expose a breast that could neither give sustenance or be received by an artists’ idea of a child? Real children were indeed holy, scared even, alive in all their chaotic glory. Real angels were full of light, kin to birds, to the cosmos that shone in the actual sky. A real mother would be full of the earth, flesh blood and breath.
She thought of seeds being planted, how the light returns each year to bring the world to life. She longed to be standing, unadorned, down there, amidst the cacophony of this crowded orb.
circle dance a child comes to be and welcome
Jean Fouquet’s Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels was the Ekphrastic Review prompt challenge this week. My haibun was not chosen, but even among the ones published on the website today, there was some ambivalence about this representation of mother and child. I obviously had more than some. You can read the selections on the website here, and Jane Dougherty’s responses to the painting, here.
My poem, “The Healing of Emptiness” is posted on The Ekphrastic Review today, immediately following Jane Dougherty’s luminous “Horse Dreams”, acting almost like a coda to the ruminations of her protagonist’s mind. The inspirational art is Franz Marc’s Tower of Blue Horses. You can read all the selections here.
My thanks once again to editor Lorette C. Luzajic for supporting my work and the interaction between the visual and written arts.
My poem, Our Lady of Scarlet, based on a painting of Marchesa di Casati, by Augustus John, is posted today on The Ekphrastic Review, along with Jane Dougherty and other writers. I did not look up the Marchesa until after I had written my poem, but I think the artist captured the essence of her life in his portrait. What I saw without knowing the facts seems very close to the truth.
My thanks once again to editor Lorette C. Luzajic for supporting my work and the interaction between the visual and written arts.
I was told by several people I could post the old way by going to WP Admin–and it works. I will still be absent for awhile as I am entering the final stages of moving–I’m packing up my computer today. But I’ll be back before the end of September.
My poem, “The Rectangular Table” has been posted at The Ekphrastic Review today. The painting that inspired it, The Last Supper by Sister Plautilla Nelli, is below.
I have a little sketchbook that I take along to museums where I draw the faces and sometimes the hands of the Marys I see in paintings, but especially in sculpture. Since the museums closed, I’ve been drawing from photos of art I find online.
Why do these images resonate with me? Unlike representations of Jesus, they seem to reflect an actual human the artist knows and loves…a sister, wife, mother, daughter. All those denied a place at the rectangular table.
My thanks once again to editor Lorette C. Luzajic for supporting my work and the interaction between the visual and written arts.
You can read my poem, along with other responses to the painting, here.
K. 