Monotype and pastel on paper
12x17
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Demeter by Carol Ann Duffy
Where I lived – winter and hard earth.
I sat in my cold stone room
choosing tough words, granite, flint,
to break the ice. My broken heart –
I tried that, but it skimmed,
flat, over the frozen lake.
She came from a long, long way,
but I saw her at last, walking,
my daughter, my girl, across the fields,
in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers
to her mother’s house. I swear
the air softened and warmed as she moved,
the blue sky smiling, none too soon
with the small shy mouth of a new moon
I sat in my cold stone room
choosing tough words, granite, flint,
to break the ice. My broken heart –
I tried that, but it skimmed,
flat, over the frozen lake.
She came from a long, long way,
but I saw her at last, walking,
my daughter, my girl, across the fields,
in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers
to her mother’s house. I swear
the air softened and warmed as she moved,
the blue sky smiling, none too soon
with the small shy mouth of a new moon
A Soliloquy for Cassandra by Wislawa Szymborska
Here I am, Cassandra.
And this is my city under ashes.
And these are my prophet's staff and ribbons.
And this is my head full of doubts.
It's true, I am triumphant.
My prophetic words burn like fire in the sky.
Only unacknowledged prophets
are privy to such prospects.
Only those who got off on the wrong foot,
whose predictions turned to fact so quickly—
it's as if they'd never lived.
I remember it so clearly—
how people, seeing me, would break off in midword.
Laughter died.
Lovers' hands unclasped.
Children ran to their mothers.
I didn't even know their short-lived names.
And that song about a little green leaf—
no one ever finished it near me.
I loved them.
But I loved them haughtily.
From heights beyond life.
From the future. Where it's always empty
and nothing is easier than seeing death.
I'm sorry that my voice was hard.
Look down on yourselves from the stars, I cried,
look down on yourselves from the stars.
They heard me and lowered their eyes.
They lived within life.
Pierced by that great wind.
Condemned.
Trapped from birth in departing bodies.
But in them they bore a moist hope,
a flame fuelled by its own flickering.
They really knew what a moment means,
oh any moment, any one at all
before—
It turns out I was right.
But nothing has come of it.
And this is my robe, slightly singed.
And this is my prophet's junk.
And this is my twisted face.
A face that didn't know it could be beautiful.
And this is my city under ashes.
And these are my prophet's staff and ribbons.
And this is my head full of doubts.
It's true, I am triumphant.
My prophetic words burn like fire in the sky.
Only unacknowledged prophets
are privy to such prospects.
Only those who got off on the wrong foot,
whose predictions turned to fact so quickly—
it's as if they'd never lived.
I remember it so clearly—
how people, seeing me, would break off in midword.
Laughter died.
Lovers' hands unclasped.
Children ran to their mothers.
I didn't even know their short-lived names.
And that song about a little green leaf—
no one ever finished it near me.
I loved them.
But I loved them haughtily.
From heights beyond life.
From the future. Where it's always empty
and nothing is easier than seeing death.
I'm sorry that my voice was hard.
Look down on yourselves from the stars, I cried,
look down on yourselves from the stars.
They heard me and lowered their eyes.
They lived within life.
Pierced by that great wind.
Condemned.
Trapped from birth in departing bodies.
But in them they bore a moist hope,
a flame fuelled by its own flickering.
They really knew what a moment means,
oh any moment, any one at all
before—
It turns out I was right.
But nothing has come of it.
And this is my robe, slightly singed.
And this is my prophet's junk.
And this is my twisted face.
A face that didn't know it could be beautiful.
Half Hanged Mary by Margaret Atwood
7 p.m.
Rumour was loose in the air,
hunting for some neck to land on.
I was milking the cow,
the barn door open to the sunset.
I didn’t feel the aimed word hit
and go on in like a soft bullet.
I didn’t feel the smashed flesh
closing over it like water
over a thrown stone.
I was hanged for living alone,
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name,
and a surefire cure for warts.
Oh yes, and breasts,
and a sweet pear hidden in my body.
Whenever there’s talk of demons
these come in handy.
8 p.m.
The rope was an improvisation.
With time they’d have thought of axes.
Up I go like a windfall in reverse,
a blackened apple stuck back onto the tree.
Trussed hands, rag in my mouth,
a flag raised to salute the moon,
old bone-faced goddess, old original,
who once took blood in return for food.
The men of the town stalk homeward,
excited by their show of hate,
their own evil turned inside out like a glove,
and me wearing it.
9 p.m.
The bonnets come to stare,
the dark skirts also,
the upturned faces in between,
mouths closed so tight they’re lipless.
I can see down into their eyeholes
and nostrils. I can see their fear.
You were my friend, you too,
I cured your baby, Mrs.,
and flushed yours out of you,
Non-wife, to save your life.
Help me down? You don’t dare.
I might rub off on you,
like soot or gossip. Birds
of a feather burn together,
though as a rule ravens are singular.
In a gathering like this one
the safe place is the background,
pretending you can’t dance,
the safe stance pointing a finger.
I understand. You can’t spare
anything, a hand, a piece of bread, a shawl
against the cold,
a good word. Lord
knows there isn’t much
to go around. You need it all.
10 p.m.
Well God, now that I’m up here,
with maybe some time to kill,
away from the daily
fingerwork, legwork, work
at the hen level,
we can continue our quarrel,
the one about free will.
Is it my choice that I’m dangling
like a turkey’s wattle from this
more than indifferent tree?
If Nature is Your alphabet,
what letter is this rope?
Does my twisting body spell out Grace?
I hurt, therefore I am.
Faith, Charity, and Hope
are three dead angels
falling like meteors or
burning owls across
the profound blank sky of Your face.
12 midnight
My throat is taut against the rope
choking off words and air;
I’m reduced to knotted muscle.
Blood bulges in my skull,
my clenched teeth hold it in;
I bite down on despair.
Death sits on my shoulder like a crow
waiting for my squeezed beet
of a heart to burst
so he can eat my eyes
or like a judge
muttering about sluts and punishment
and licking his lips
or like a dark angel
insidious in his glossy feathers
whispering to me to be easy
on myself. To breathe out finally.
Trust me, he says, caressing
me. Why suffer?
A temptation, to sink down
onto these definitions.
To become a martyr in reverse,
or food, or trash.
To give up my own words for myself,
my own refusals.
To give up knowing.
To give up pain.
To let go.
2 a.m.
Out of my mouths is coming, at some
distance from me, a thin gnawing sound
which you could confuse with prayer except that
praying is not constrained.
Or is it, Lord?
Maybe it’s more like being strangled
than I once thought. Maybe it’s
a gasp for air, prayer.
Did those men at Pentecost
want flames to shoot out of their heads?
Did they ask to be tossed
on the ground, gabbling like holy poultry,
eyeballs bulging?
As mine are, as mine are.
There is only one prayer; it is not
the knees in the clean nightgown
on the hooked rug.
I want this, I want that.
Oh far beyond.
Call it Please. Call it Mercy.
Call it Not yet, not yet,
as Heaven threatens to explode
inwards in fire and shredded flesh, and the angels caw.
3 a.m.
wind seethes in the leaves around
me the trees exude night
birds night birds yell inside
my ears like stabbed hearts my heart
stutters in my fluttering cloth
body I dangle with strength
going out of the wind seethes
in my body tattering
the words I clench
my fists hold No
talisman or silver disc my lungs
flail as if drowning I call
on you as witness I did
no crime I was born I have borne I
bear I will be born this is
a crime I will not
acknowledge leaves and wind
hold on to me
I will not give in
6 a.m.
Sun comes up, huge and blaring,
no longer a simile for God.
Wrong address. I’ve been out there.
Time is relative, let me tell you
I have lived a millennium.
I would like to say my hair turned white
overnight, but it didn’t.
Instead it was my heart;
bleached out like meat in water.
Also, I’m about three inches taller.
This is what happens when you drift in space
listening to the gospel
of the red hot stars.
Pinpoints of infinity riddle my brain,
a revelation of deafness.
At the end of my rope
I testify to silence.
Don’t say I’m not grateful.
Most will only have one death.
I will have two.
8 a.m.
When they came to harvest my corpse
(open your mouth, close your eyes)
cut my body from the rope,
surprise, surprise,
I was still alive.
Tough luck, folks,
I know the law:
you can’t execute me twice
for the same thing. How nice.
I fell to the clover, breathed it in,
and bared my teeth at them
in a filthy grin.
You can imagine how that went over.
Now I only need to look
out at them through my sky-blue eyes.
They see their own ill will
staring them in the forehead
and turn tail.
Before, I was not a withc.
But now I am one.
Later
My body of skin waxes and wanes
around my true body,
a tender nimbus.
I skitter over the paths and fields,
mumbling to myself like crazy,
mouth full of juicy adjectives
and purple berries.
The townsfolk dive headfirst into the bushes
to get out of my way.
My first death orbits my head,
an ambiguous nimbus,
medallion of my ordeal.
No one crosses that circle.
Having been hanged for something
I never said,
I can now say anything I can say.
Holiness gleams on my dirty fingers,
I eat flowers and dung,,
two forms of the same thing, I eat mice
and give thanks, blasphemies
gleam and burst in my wake
like lovely bubbles.
I speak in tongues,
my audience is owls.
My audience is God,
because who the hell else could understand me?
The words boil out of me,
coil after coil of sinuous possibility.
The cosmos unravels from my mouth,
all fullness, all vacancy.
Rumour was loose in the air,
hunting for some neck to land on.
I was milking the cow,
the barn door open to the sunset.
I didn’t feel the aimed word hit
and go on in like a soft bullet.
I didn’t feel the smashed flesh
closing over it like water
over a thrown stone.
I was hanged for living alone,
for having blue eyes and a sunburned skin,
tattered skirts, few buttons,
a weedy farm in my own name,
and a surefire cure for warts.
Oh yes, and breasts,
and a sweet pear hidden in my body.
Whenever there’s talk of demons
these come in handy.
8 p.m.
The rope was an improvisation.
With time they’d have thought of axes.
Up I go like a windfall in reverse,
a blackened apple stuck back onto the tree.
Trussed hands, rag in my mouth,
a flag raised to salute the moon,
old bone-faced goddess, old original,
who once took blood in return for food.
The men of the town stalk homeward,
excited by their show of hate,
their own evil turned inside out like a glove,
and me wearing it.
9 p.m.
The bonnets come to stare,
the dark skirts also,
the upturned faces in between,
mouths closed so tight they’re lipless.
I can see down into their eyeholes
and nostrils. I can see their fear.
You were my friend, you too,
I cured your baby, Mrs.,
and flushed yours out of you,
Non-wife, to save your life.
Help me down? You don’t dare.
I might rub off on you,
like soot or gossip. Birds
of a feather burn together,
though as a rule ravens are singular.
In a gathering like this one
the safe place is the background,
pretending you can’t dance,
the safe stance pointing a finger.
I understand. You can’t spare
anything, a hand, a piece of bread, a shawl
against the cold,
a good word. Lord
knows there isn’t much
to go around. You need it all.
10 p.m.
Well God, now that I’m up here,
with maybe some time to kill,
away from the daily
fingerwork, legwork, work
at the hen level,
we can continue our quarrel,
the one about free will.
Is it my choice that I’m dangling
like a turkey’s wattle from this
more than indifferent tree?
If Nature is Your alphabet,
what letter is this rope?
Does my twisting body spell out Grace?
I hurt, therefore I am.
Faith, Charity, and Hope
are three dead angels
falling like meteors or
burning owls across
the profound blank sky of Your face.
12 midnight
My throat is taut against the rope
choking off words and air;
I’m reduced to knotted muscle.
Blood bulges in my skull,
my clenched teeth hold it in;
I bite down on despair.
Death sits on my shoulder like a crow
waiting for my squeezed beet
of a heart to burst
so he can eat my eyes
or like a judge
muttering about sluts and punishment
and licking his lips
or like a dark angel
insidious in his glossy feathers
whispering to me to be easy
on myself. To breathe out finally.
Trust me, he says, caressing
me. Why suffer?
A temptation, to sink down
onto these definitions.
To become a martyr in reverse,
or food, or trash.
To give up my own words for myself,
my own refusals.
To give up knowing.
To give up pain.
To let go.
2 a.m.
Out of my mouths is coming, at some
distance from me, a thin gnawing sound
which you could confuse with prayer except that
praying is not constrained.
Or is it, Lord?
Maybe it’s more like being strangled
than I once thought. Maybe it’s
a gasp for air, prayer.
Did those men at Pentecost
want flames to shoot out of their heads?
Did they ask to be tossed
on the ground, gabbling like holy poultry,
eyeballs bulging?
As mine are, as mine are.
There is only one prayer; it is not
the knees in the clean nightgown
on the hooked rug.
I want this, I want that.
Oh far beyond.
Call it Please. Call it Mercy.
Call it Not yet, not yet,
as Heaven threatens to explode
inwards in fire and shredded flesh, and the angels caw.
3 a.m.
wind seethes in the leaves around
me the trees exude night
birds night birds yell inside
my ears like stabbed hearts my heart
stutters in my fluttering cloth
body I dangle with strength
going out of the wind seethes
in my body tattering
the words I clench
my fists hold No
talisman or silver disc my lungs
flail as if drowning I call
on you as witness I did
no crime I was born I have borne I
bear I will be born this is
a crime I will not
acknowledge leaves and wind
hold on to me
I will not give in
6 a.m.
Sun comes up, huge and blaring,
no longer a simile for God.
Wrong address. I’ve been out there.
Time is relative, let me tell you
I have lived a millennium.
I would like to say my hair turned white
overnight, but it didn’t.
Instead it was my heart;
bleached out like meat in water.
Also, I’m about three inches taller.
This is what happens when you drift in space
listening to the gospel
of the red hot stars.
Pinpoints of infinity riddle my brain,
a revelation of deafness.
At the end of my rope
I testify to silence.
Don’t say I’m not grateful.
Most will only have one death.
I will have two.
8 a.m.
When they came to harvest my corpse
(open your mouth, close your eyes)
cut my body from the rope,
surprise, surprise,
I was still alive.
Tough luck, folks,
I know the law:
you can’t execute me twice
for the same thing. How nice.
I fell to the clover, breathed it in,
and bared my teeth at them
in a filthy grin.
You can imagine how that went over.
Now I only need to look
out at them through my sky-blue eyes.
They see their own ill will
staring them in the forehead
and turn tail.
Before, I was not a withc.
But now I am one.
Later
My body of skin waxes and wanes
around my true body,
a tender nimbus.
I skitter over the paths and fields,
mumbling to myself like crazy,
mouth full of juicy adjectives
and purple berries.
The townsfolk dive headfirst into the bushes
to get out of my way.
My first death orbits my head,
an ambiguous nimbus,
medallion of my ordeal.
No one crosses that circle.
Having been hanged for something
I never said,
I can now say anything I can say.
Holiness gleams on my dirty fingers,
I eat flowers and dung,,
two forms of the same thing, I eat mice
and give thanks, blasphemies
gleam and burst in my wake
like lovely bubbles.
I speak in tongues,
my audience is owls.
My audience is God,
because who the hell else could understand me?
The words boil out of me,
coil after coil of sinuous possibility.
The cosmos unravels from my mouth,
all fullness, all vacancy.
Sekhmet, the Lion-headed Goddess of War by Margaret Atwood
He was the sort of man
who wouldn't hurt a fly.
Many flies are now alive
while he is not.
He was not my patron.
He preferred full granaries, I battle.
My roar meant slaughter.
Yet here we are together
in the same museum.
That's not what I see, though, the fitful
crowds of staring children
learning the lesson of multi-
cultural obliteration, sic transit
and so on.
I see the temple where I was born
or built, where I held power.
I see the desert beyond,
where the hot conical tombs, that look
from a distance, frankly, like dunces' hats,
hide my jokes: the dried-out flesh
and bones, the wooden boats
in which the dead sail endlessly
in no direction.
What did you expect from gods
with animal heads?
Though come to think of it
the ones made later, who were fully human
were not such good news either.
Favour me and give me riches,
destroy my enemies.
That seems to be the gist.
Oh yes: And save me from death.
In return we're given blood
and bread, flowers and prayer,
and lip service.
Maybe there's something in all of this
I missed. But if it's selfless
love you're looking for,
you've got the wrong goddess.
I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
that in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion
will come with bandages in her mouth
and the soft body of a woman,
and lick you clean of fever,
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck
and caress you into darkness and paradise.
who wouldn't hurt a fly.
Many flies are now alive
while he is not.
He was not my patron.
He preferred full granaries, I battle.
My roar meant slaughter.
Yet here we are together
in the same museum.
That's not what I see, though, the fitful
crowds of staring children
learning the lesson of multi-
cultural obliteration, sic transit
and so on.
I see the temple where I was born
or built, where I held power.
I see the desert beyond,
where the hot conical tombs, that look
from a distance, frankly, like dunces' hats,
hide my jokes: the dried-out flesh
and bones, the wooden boats
in which the dead sail endlessly
in no direction.
What did you expect from gods
with animal heads?
Though come to think of it
the ones made later, who were fully human
were not such good news either.
Favour me and give me riches,
destroy my enemies.
That seems to be the gist.
Oh yes: And save me from death.
In return we're given blood
and bread, flowers and prayer,
and lip service.
Maybe there's something in all of this
I missed. But if it's selfless
love you're looking for,
you've got the wrong goddess.
I just sit where I'm put, composed
of stone and wishful thinking:
that the deity who kills for pleasure
will also heal,
that in the midst of your nightmare,
the final one, a kind lion
will come with bandages in her mouth
and the soft body of a woman,
and lick you clean of fever,
and pick your soul up gently by the nape of the neck
and caress you into darkness and paradise.
Lot's Wife by Wislawa Szymborska
They say I looked back out of curiosity.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead
he wouldn't so much as hesitate.
From the disobedience of the meek.
Checking for pursuers.
Struck by the silence, hoping God had changed his mind.
Our two daughters were already vanishing over the hilltop.
I felt age within me. Distance.
The futility of wandering. Torpor.
I looked back setting my bundle down.
I looked back not knowing where to set my foot.
Serpents appeared on my path,
spiders, field mice, baby vultures.
They were neither good nor evil now--every living thing
was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic.
I looked back in desolation.
In shame because we had stolen away.
Wanting to cry out, to go home.
Or only when a sudden gust of wind
unbound my hair and lifted up my robe.
It seemed to me that they were watching from the walls of Sodom
and bursting into thunderous laughter again and again.
I looked back in anger.
To savor their terrible fate.
I looked back for all the reasons given above.
I looked back involuntarily.
It was only a rock that turned underfoot, growling at me.
It was a sudden crack that stopped me in my tracks.
A hamster on its hind paws tottered on the edge.
It was then we both glanced back.
No, no. I ran on,
I crept, I flew upward
until darkness fell from the heavens
and with it scorching gravel and dead birds.
I couldn't breathe and spun around and around.
Anyone who saw me must have thought I was dancing.
It's not inconceivable that my eyes were open.
It's possible I fell facing the city.
But I could have had other reasons.
I looked back mourning my silver bowl.
Carelessly, while tying my sandal strap.
So I wouldn't have to keep staring at the righteous nape
of my husband Lot's neck.
From the sudden conviction that if I dropped dead
he wouldn't so much as hesitate.
From the disobedience of the meek.
Checking for pursuers.
Struck by the silence, hoping God had changed his mind.
Our two daughters were already vanishing over the hilltop.
I felt age within me. Distance.
The futility of wandering. Torpor.
I looked back setting my bundle down.
I looked back not knowing where to set my foot.
Serpents appeared on my path,
spiders, field mice, baby vultures.
They were neither good nor evil now--every living thing
was simply creeping or hopping along in the mass panic.
I looked back in desolation.
In shame because we had stolen away.
Wanting to cry out, to go home.
Or only when a sudden gust of wind
unbound my hair and lifted up my robe.
It seemed to me that they were watching from the walls of Sodom
and bursting into thunderous laughter again and again.
I looked back in anger.
To savor their terrible fate.
I looked back for all the reasons given above.
I looked back involuntarily.
It was only a rock that turned underfoot, growling at me.
It was a sudden crack that stopped me in my tracks.
A hamster on its hind paws tottered on the edge.
It was then we both glanced back.
No, no. I ran on,
I crept, I flew upward
until darkness fell from the heavens
and with it scorching gravel and dead birds.
I couldn't breathe and spun around and around.
Anyone who saw me must have thought I was dancing.
It's not inconceivable that my eyes were open.
It's possible I fell facing the city.
The Virgin Mary Speaks by Lucy Anderton
I warned him about those Men.
I never raised him to be King.
Only to be what was needed --
the answer to the Innkeper.
Perhaps it could've been different
but that night I was just too broken.
My legs were sweltering sacks of veins,
my bones cracked with the new kicking weight.
And that punishing ride through the mountains,
they never wrote about the open sores
on my buttocks, my screaming vagina.
And the Fear.
I stank of it.
I had seen the collapse of birthing women.
The long crushing muscles, the shriek
of ripping skin. The invisible hammering
out of a child. And, of course, the Death.
Yes. I had seen this.
The men and their fearful feet
gathering in other rooms like pigeons.
Their wives unseen and splitting air
with horror and with miracles.
Shuttered away they could hear
the blotted screams. But they didn't witness
the bloodfury in the eyes of a woman
whose body seems determined to kill her.
They didn't see her brain
whipping at logic
as it slipped
into war with sinew.
No. They just waited for the babies to come.
Or not. They hid from the Wrath
of Birth.
So it was easy for that pigskinned
Innkeeper to turn his back
on my stricken cheeks.
My trivial lips.
And my Joseph.
To see my Joseph beg.
My poor confused Josef. Trying
so hard not to panic. See,
I had told him the stories back
when we were sure we'd have hot water.
That night he could taste the Losing of me.
That Innkeeper jerked his careless finger
in front of Joseph's honest nose.
Don't let that Book tell you otherwise!
There was no gracious offer of a stable,
just a slammed dusty door as he munched
back to his dinner, his desperate wife.
Josef saw the blood from the lip I was biting,
dragged our tottering mule to that little
dank stable, hauled me down like sack,
and hid me
behind the sheep
and the cows.
And as I stared at their innocent
udders, their shitcaked hocks,
the world exploded.
My mouth stuffed with straw.
Even then, I knew
he was only mine
for those moments
in the starlight.
And those Men came. Knocking over me
with their knees and swiveling eyes.
Kicking aside my blood, stinking
of camel, myrrh and pride.
The Innkeeper, swaggering about
in his new celebrity. Claiming
his place in the birth
of "God's son."
They wrote down those stories.
But they didn't ask me anything.
I was just another female
etching for them to paint in.
So is it any wonder
that I stand here
grey and stiff.
My face placid.
My arms stuck open
like forgotten wings.
They have made me a stony bird.
You look to me
with your weepings,
your begging questions,
willing me to cry
one more tear
so you can shout "Miracle!"
and stifle me with your breath
and with your fingers.
But I have cried enough.
And the only movement
you will see is the final
cracking open of these
plaster lips
and whilst you wait
for a zoo of blessings
I will cheat you.
I will tell you the truth.
I will say to you
"He was my son!"
I never raised him to be King.
Only to be what was needed --
the answer to the Innkeper.
Perhaps it could've been different
but that night I was just too broken.
My legs were sweltering sacks of veins,
my bones cracked with the new kicking weight.
And that punishing ride through the mountains,
they never wrote about the open sores
on my buttocks, my screaming vagina.
And the Fear.
I stank of it.
I had seen the collapse of birthing women.
The long crushing muscles, the shriek
of ripping skin. The invisible hammering
out of a child. And, of course, the Death.
Yes. I had seen this.
The men and their fearful feet
gathering in other rooms like pigeons.
Their wives unseen and splitting air
with horror and with miracles.
Shuttered away they could hear
the blotted screams. But they didn't witness
the bloodfury in the eyes of a woman
whose body seems determined to kill her.
They didn't see her brain
whipping at logic
as it slipped
into war with sinew.
No. They just waited for the babies to come.
Or not. They hid from the Wrath
of Birth.
So it was easy for that pigskinned
Innkeeper to turn his back
on my stricken cheeks.
My trivial lips.
And my Joseph.
To see my Joseph beg.
My poor confused Josef. Trying
so hard not to panic. See,
I had told him the stories back
when we were sure we'd have hot water.
That night he could taste the Losing of me.
That Innkeeper jerked his careless finger
in front of Joseph's honest nose.
Don't let that Book tell you otherwise!
There was no gracious offer of a stable,
just a slammed dusty door as he munched
back to his dinner, his desperate wife.
Josef saw the blood from the lip I was biting,
dragged our tottering mule to that little
dank stable, hauled me down like sack,
and hid me
behind the sheep
and the cows.
And as I stared at their innocent
udders, their shitcaked hocks,
the world exploded.
My mouth stuffed with straw.
Even then, I knew
he was only mine
for those moments
in the starlight.
And those Men came. Knocking over me
with their knees and swiveling eyes.
Kicking aside my blood, stinking
of camel, myrrh and pride.
The Innkeeper, swaggering about
in his new celebrity. Claiming
his place in the birth
of "God's son."
They wrote down those stories.
But they didn't ask me anything.
I was just another female
etching for them to paint in.
So is it any wonder
that I stand here
grey and stiff.
My face placid.
My arms stuck open
like forgotten wings.
They have made me a stony bird.
You look to me
with your weepings,
your begging questions,
willing me to cry
one more tear
so you can shout "Miracle!"
and stifle me with your breath
and with your fingers.
But I have cried enough.
And the only movement
you will see is the final
cracking open of these
plaster lips
and whilst you wait
for a zoo of blessings
I will cheat you.
I will tell you the truth.
I will say to you
"He was my son!"
Artist's Statement
The impetus for this particular set of works came from several contemporary poems that I amassed over the course of a year, all of them dealing with subject matter around archetypal female figures – historical, religious, or mythical women. I found it very intriguing that so many different writers had chosen to write about these looming cultural figures in the voice of the first person. I realized that the women that were the subject matter are often, as we know them, voiceless, and that the authors had taken the opportunity to give them a voice. What I wanted to do was to illustrate the words.
The piece to illustrate the poem Demeter, by Carol Ann Duffy, was the first piece that I worked on, and is also my favorite work. It was a serious challenge. The poem is deeply moving. To start, I concentrated on several different lines to structure the piece. The first part was the background, which I chose to make very dark, based on the images presented in the beginning of the poem, “winter and hard earth,” “cold stone room.” The portrait part of the drawing was based on my personal emotional response to the poem, how I understood the character. The figure in the background represents Persephone, Demeter’s daughter, who comes into play at the end of the poem: “I saw her at last, walking,/ my daughter, my girl, across the fields,/ in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers/ to her mother’s house.” This figure is also a reference to the French Symbolist artist Odilon Redon, who was a great inspiration to me throughout this whole process. The figure comes directly from his pastel drawing “Oriental Woman,” as well as the flowers around her, which come from a pastel drawing of wildflowers. More generally, the choices I made in regard to color and composition were greatly influenced by his works.
Other works were less specific in regard to their poetic motivation. Some of the written works I used did not have such distinct physical imagery. In those cases, I worked even more from a personal response, using colors and images that came out of the emotions evoked by the poetry.
I think my best work is the piece that illustrates Half-Hanged Mary, a powerful piece by Margaret Atwood about a woman who was hanged during the Salem witch trials, but survived. This piece visually marks the point where I began to have a deeper understanding of the printing process that I was using. I started manipulating the inks in a more complex way, and used a cut-out to create the background of the piece. This was the first piece . This was the third piece that I worked on. I wanted the colors to be brighter than in the previous pieces, but not overwhelmingly so – I was not working with a cheerful subject. The tone of the poem, particularly the second half, called for an abstraction. Sections such as “wind seethes in the leaves around/ me the trees exude night/ birds night birds yell inside/ my ears like stabbed hearts…” and “The cosmos unravels from my mouth,/ all fullness, all vacancy” seemed to be essential to the overall effect of the poem. I chose the composition in order to communicate this mood, as well as the colors, in both the background and the portrait portion. Birds are an important symbol in the poem, and I used that more literally, using a flock of birds both as a symbol and as a device to create space.
While the poems were an integral part of my personal creative process, I want the visual works to be able to stand on their own, which is part of why I chose not to display the poems alongside of them. However, because they were so important, they are available if the audience chooses to seek them out.
The piece to illustrate the poem Demeter, by Carol Ann Duffy, was the first piece that I worked on, and is also my favorite work. It was a serious challenge. The poem is deeply moving. To start, I concentrated on several different lines to structure the piece. The first part was the background, which I chose to make very dark, based on the images presented in the beginning of the poem, “winter and hard earth,” “cold stone room.” The portrait part of the drawing was based on my personal emotional response to the poem, how I understood the character. The figure in the background represents Persephone, Demeter’s daughter, who comes into play at the end of the poem: “I saw her at last, walking,/ my daughter, my girl, across the fields,/ in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers/ to her mother’s house.” This figure is also a reference to the French Symbolist artist Odilon Redon, who was a great inspiration to me throughout this whole process. The figure comes directly from his pastel drawing “Oriental Woman,” as well as the flowers around her, which come from a pastel drawing of wildflowers. More generally, the choices I made in regard to color and composition were greatly influenced by his works.
Other works were less specific in regard to their poetic motivation. Some of the written works I used did not have such distinct physical imagery. In those cases, I worked even more from a personal response, using colors and images that came out of the emotions evoked by the poetry.
I think my best work is the piece that illustrates Half-Hanged Mary, a powerful piece by Margaret Atwood about a woman who was hanged during the Salem witch trials, but survived. This piece visually marks the point where I began to have a deeper understanding of the printing process that I was using. I started manipulating the inks in a more complex way, and used a cut-out to create the background of the piece. This was the first piece . This was the third piece that I worked on. I wanted the colors to be brighter than in the previous pieces, but not overwhelmingly so – I was not working with a cheerful subject. The tone of the poem, particularly the second half, called for an abstraction. Sections such as “wind seethes in the leaves around/ me the trees exude night/ birds night birds yell inside/ my ears like stabbed hearts…” and “The cosmos unravels from my mouth,/ all fullness, all vacancy” seemed to be essential to the overall effect of the poem. I chose the composition in order to communicate this mood, as well as the colors, in both the background and the portrait portion. Birds are an important symbol in the poem, and I used that more literally, using a flock of birds both as a symbol and as a device to create space.
While the poems were an integral part of my personal creative process, I want the visual works to be able to stand on their own, which is part of why I chose not to display the poems alongside of them. However, because they were so important, they are available if the audience chooses to seek them out.
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