Thursday, April 16, 2009

For The Poetry Stretch: Monet's Woman with a Parasol


Tricia over at The Miss Rumphius Effect asked us to stretch (poetry-wise) this week with an ekphrastic poem - one that addresses a work of art (though Tricia cut us all some slack and said it could be related to anything "behind the museum door" in honor of Lee Bennett Hopkins' new book of the same name.) Here's my poem, based on Monet's "Woman with a Parasol." The painting took my breath away when I saw it at the Art Institute of Chicago many years ago - it was on loan from the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.. The painting is sometimes called "La Promenade" (The Stroll - oh, that's a nice title for someone who likes to drift....) or even "Camille Monet and Her Son, Jean" :


ON SEEING MONET'S WOMAN WITH A PARASOL


She’s open-eyed, like any wild

animal that's over-constrained or riled

but not showing any teeth

she is, after all, Victorian, complete

down to the parasol she carries outside

into the dangerous light,

the sun being a source of some distress

and the wind in her dress

like hot hounds nipping, and a hill

to overcome before she’s home – still

you stare at her bright center, so

strange and generous, so

unguarded and surrendering.

You stare: sunlight bending


up from the summer grass paints her elbow

a color both the blind and the sighted envy: yellow.

And the air becomes unlike any breathed

variety, her blue-on-white sleeve

canaries and flutters, shining.

It’s a moment of burning –

but you find the unshaded point

that will let you in, the vulnerable point

of convergence. You’re as scared

as the child behind her, both of you unprepared

for this flight you're about to take into the bend

of her left arm, when suddenly the guard sends

a stern warning: Don’t get too close.

You step back and say I won't.


-------------------

Tricia mentioned something about favorite museums, and I have to save that nothing has ever surpassed the Cluny in Paris for me - a collection focused on the Middle Ages, which I love, all housed in a medieval building. To resist that museum and its time-travel magic, you would have to be made of ice. Click on the link here and spend a few minutes/hours/days/years/lifetimes. Here's a photo of the vaulting, via flickr.com -


I think I'll keep this post up for Poetry Friday, too, since Friday is only a few hours away. It's going to be hosted this week over at Becky's Book Reviews, so check there tomorrow. Thanks, Becky!






11 comments:

  1. I thought I had experienced that painting but now, after your poem, I realize I barely glanced at it. "the wind in her dress like hot hounds" Wow.

    I find art endlessly inspiring to my writing. I have to carry a notebook into any art museum because my mind just starts exploding with ideas. Maybe I should camp out in one a la From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler.

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  2. The Vaulting at Cluny: 5 linked haikus plus

    “Angel wings,” you say
    in such a longing whisper
    I hear the rustle.

    Looking up I see
    Not angel wings but vaulting,
    Man made and man strong.

    “Angel wings ,”I say
    “Will last an eternity.
    These last a man’s life.”

    We argue outside.
    “Eternity—a lifetime.”
    Each with certainty.

    A flutter behind
    Is unheard in our loud words
    As angels fly off,
    Leaving the vaulting behind.


    for Julie
    c 2009 Jane Yolen

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  3. Julie, wow. At the risk of gushing, I want to say that reading your poetry reminds me of watching Itzahk Perlman play the violin--there is a gracefulness and seeming-effortlessness in your writing that I see when I watch him play.

    Of this poem, I particularly like this part:

    "she is, after all, Victorian, complete

    down to the parasol she carries outside

    into the dangerous light"

    You said so much in so few words! Thanks for sharing this poem today.

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  4. Oh my soul! what a poem. This part really knocked me down:

    "the air becomes unlike any breathed variety, her blue-on-white sleeve canaries and flutters, shining. It’s a moment of burning – but you find the unshaded point that will let you in, the vulnerable point
    of convergence. You’re as scared as the child "

    and jane's haiku - *gasp*

    Thank your for starting us off like this!

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  5. Wow.
    Thanks for taking me to the museum this morning and letting my eyes see this painting through yours. I was almost physically jolted back from the painting by the guard at the end. (I've been known to get to close and even to get caught touching...)

    Her eyes. No escaping those eyes. And her burning center.

    As for the vaulting, I saw palm fronds before I scrolled down and read! But angel wings...much better. Especially when they flutter away...

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  6. I feel summer radiating out of your words. Lovely!

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  7. Sara - I agree, it would be such fun to camp out at the Met!

    Imagine how wonderful would be at night, all silent, no other people? I'd take s sleeping bag & a pillow & just wander around in my pj's, and I'd settle down for the night in the big hall of Egyptian art & see what spirits visited me.

    Jane - that's a lovely haiku series....and doesn't the vaulting look a little like the bone structure of a bird's (or angel's) wing? (Hmmmm....Do angels need bones?...Interesting....)

    Fiddler - thanks for your nice comment. And I have to say that the photo which accompanies your post looks like Rosario Beach on Whidbey Island, but you don't live out this direction (Pacific NW) so where is it..it doesn't look like a Massachusettes beach....???

    Andromeda - glad you enjoyed it. Thanks.

    Mary Lee - Oh, good - the jolt at the end is just what I was going for.

    Lisa - Summer, yes - that's what the yellow did to me. Light, heat.

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  8. Julie, the photo is from the East coast--Wonderland on Mount Desert Island, ME. One of my favorite places--the rocks, the blueberries, the rocks! More pictures can be found in my very first blog post, from August of last year.

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  9. I read your poem yesterday, then wanted to come back and read again today. Jane Yolen's linked haikus, too. I am treasuring Poetry Friday more and more. Poetry Friday becomes Poetry Saturday, Poetry Sunday ... Thank you!

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  10. Julie Larios,
    I'd like to consider publishing your poem Frontotemporal Dementia in a book I am preparing with the working title: the Neuropsychiatry of Poetry. Let's talk,
    Richard M. Patel, MD

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  11. Dr. Patel - That sounds intriguing. You can reach me at this email address:
    jlarios2007@gmail.com

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