Poets and Poems: Hedy Habra and “Under Brushstrokes”

Sometimes I find myself backing into a poet’s work – starting with the most recent work and then working my way backwards to earlier works. Such is the case with Hedy Habra, whose Or Did You Ever See the Other Side? (2023) I considered here last year. 

Then I read her first collection, Tea in Heliopolis (2013). I realized she has been writing about art – paintings, sculpture, music, architecture, and history from the beginning. Her background suggests this is not by accident; she’s been exploring the cultural heritage of her family through poetry from the beginning. 

 

Under Brushstrokes was published in 2015. As the title suggests, may, or most, of the poems are about art. Habra is going to take us on something of a tour, with our informed tour guide showing us what is and isn’t obvious.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

mist\’mist\ n. 1,3,4 – poem by M.L. Brown at Every Day Poems.

 

“A Christmas Carol,” poem by G.K. Chesterton – Kelly Keller at On the Common.

 

“Winter Wakeneth al my Care” – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

A Quarrel with the World: Milosz’s complicated Second World War – Alan Jacobs at The Hedgehog Review.

 

A Review of The Teller’s Cage: Poems and Imaginary Movies by John Philip Drury – Carla Sarett at New Verse Review.

Marjorie Maddox Have: Poetry, Art, and Spelling

In 2018, poet Marjorie Maddox Hafer drove with her then art-student daughter Anna to Baltimore. Their destination was the American Visionary Art Museum. As Hafer describes in her introduction to In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind (2023), they drove through a thunderstorm, and she herself was recovering from a recent medical procedure.

At the museum they walked into both poetry and artistic inspiration. Hafer would write nine poems based on art and photography works; within a year, her daughter would receive her art degree, hold her first exhibition, and sell her first work. Hafer includes the nine poems in this 2023 collection, accompanied by the inspirational artworks themselves. The other 23 poems in the collection are matched to works by her daughter. (You can see many of Anna Hafer’s art works here.)

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

Poet Laura: What’s in a Name – Sandra Fox Murphy at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Else Lasker-Schuler’s Grief – David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.

 

Finding Your Needle in Chesterton’s Haystack – Alan Cornett at Miller’s Book Review.

 

“How to Tel the Wild Animals,” poem by Carolyn Wells – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

The James Laughlin Award: Mary Hickman and “Rayfish”

Rayfish by poet Mary Hickman received the 2016 James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets, given to recognize an outstanding second collection by an American poet. It is a collection of 15 longish prose poems, each an ekphrastic poem inspired by a work of art, a cultural artifact, a photograph, and much more.

Mary Hickman

It is more than worthwhile to read these poems aloud; in fact, it may be mandatory. For it is only by reading them aloud that one finds the rhythm and pace of each poem, hears and experiences the drama building in the narrative, and even tastes the precision with which Hickman writes.

We find poems like “Still life with Rayfish,” inspired by a painting by the Russian artist Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) and a poem about the life of artist Andy Warhol. We read “I Have Had Many Near-Death Experiences,” based on a dance by the Japanese dancer Kazuo Ohno (1906-2010). We discover the poetry inspired by an invasive garden weed, hip replacement surgery, and open-heart surgery (Hickman worked in the medical field for a time). And the poetry of a photograph.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Poets and Poems: Barbara Crooker and “Les Fauves”

It had been 30 years since we had been in London. One site on my “must-see” list was the Tate Modern, that monumental museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art and occupying a former power plant on the south bank of the Thames, directly across the Millennium Bridge from St. Paul’s Cathedral. Even if you don’t like contemporary art, the museum is stunning. The major exhibition at the time was the works of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, which I would see two days later. On this day, I simply wanted to experience the museum itself.

I wandered. And in the corner of a large room I came upon a painting by the British painter Meredith Frampton (1894-1984) entitled “Marguerite Kelsey.” Kelsey (1908-1994) was a professional model, and this painting of her from 1928 simply stunned me. I stood in front of it for a good 15 minutes, and then resumed my wandering. I went back to it before I left, and I would return twice more during that trip to see it. Two years later, I had a similar experience with “Interior 1981” by the German painter Anselm Kiefer, during an exhibition of his work at the Royal Academy of Art. As it turned out, that painting was part of Kiefer’s leading Germany to confront its Nazi past.

Art can move us to a stunned silence. It can also move us to write poetry, as the paintings of the Fauvism movement, roughly 1904 to 1908, moved poet Barbara Crooker to write Les Fauves, her newest collection. (The term for poetry inspired by other forms of art is ekphrastic poetry, and Crooker won a ekphrastic poetry award in 2006.)

To continue reading, please see my post todat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Painting: Odalisque avec Anemones, oil on canvas (1937) by Henri Matisse; Philadelphia Museum of Art.