Inspired by Camille Claudel’s sculpture “The Wave”
Almost like a fist
the great wave of war
rises now, arching,
all froth and force,
and in the single instant
before the crash,
before our demise is cast
in onyx or bronze,
before everything
we’ve made is smashed
like plaster on the floor,
this chance to conceive
the world as it could be,
the chance to take
each other’s hands
and hold them fast
so the terrible wave
can’t separate us.
The wave will break.
We will be towed and tossed.
My friends, it matters
that we stay together.
to see this sculpture, visit here
Posts Tagged ‘ekphrasis’
The Single Instant
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camille claudel, connection, ekphrasis, moment, war, water, wave on March 5, 2026| 6 Comments »
The Art of Tragedy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged camille claudel, ekphrasis, history, tragedy, women on February 17, 2026| 4 Comments »
When was the first time you knew
you would never be loved for who you are?
The first time you knew you would disappoint
everyone when you dared to show up
as yourself? I think of Camille Claudel
in her white frock, the lacy one she was forced
to wear. Her mother’s anger when
young Camille would return from the woods,
mud-joyously smudged, after a day
spent forming skeletons in clay.
A decade later Camille would be the one
Rodin depended on to sculpt the hands
and feet of his masterpieces. He would put
his own name on her work. Decry her talent.
Disparage her truth. Have you, too,
had your gifts turned to weapons used against you?
Have you, too, had someone else’s hands
re-mold the clay of your life into a story
you cannot bear? Could you, too, like Camille,
carve your most painful moment into hard marble
and offer it to the world to see, a moment so raw
people would gasp when they saw it,
even a hundred years later, and filled with ache
they would say, oh, my god, it is so beautiful.
**
Oh friends. There are so many unsung heroes in the world. And I am so glad that during Women’s History Month (yes, it still exists and is still relevant), my dear friend Kayleen Asbo and I are hosting a two-week series on relatively unknown, remarkably talented women artists with incredible stories. The first week we learn about Camille Claudel, the subject of my poem above, who was first worshipped by and then vilified by Auguste Rodin. The second week we learn of the wacky, resilient Suzanne Valadon who was muse to Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Erik Satie, and more, who forged her own artistic path, recreating the feminine from object to subject. It is STILL a radical act to celebrate the lives and contributions of women artists. Join us, please. Both weeks we’ll have six writing opportunities inspired by these women’s lives and their art.
From Tragedy to Triumph: Writing with Great Women Artists
March 4 & 11, 11-1 mountain time
Zoom
$50/$80/$100
Join me and the incomparable cultural historian Kayleen Asbo for a two-week class in which we explore the lives of sculptress Camille Claudel (whom we briefly met in connection with Rodin) and the wildly unconventional and irrepressible Suzanne Valadon, who began her career as the favorite model of Renoir and Toulouse Lautrec and though self-taught, achieved remarkable success and renown in her own right as a painter. We will marry inspiring art with poetry and our shared creative writing practice. Join us!
Since You’re Gone
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged couch, ekphrasis, heart, love, missing on January 26, 2025| 6 Comments »
My heart is like a well-used couch,
the kind with a dent where your body
once curled in, the cushions threadbare
from years of use; the kind of couch
that remembers every time you gave
it your weight, that recalls every story
that spilled from your mouth,
your words now woven into its upholstery.
Since you’re gone, the picture of me looks
like less like a picture of me and more
like a picture of where you used to be.
Learning from the Painting on My Kitchen Wall
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ekphrasis, painting, rob schultheis on June 2, 2024| 2 Comments »
with thanks to Rob Schultheis
She is beautiful, the woman
on the wall with one long braid
and an owlet perched on her hand.
Not beautiful the way young girls dream,
but beautiful in the way old women dream.
which is to say she is deeply seen.
Sometimes I swear she watches me
as I slice the shiitake, as I chop the kale.
Her eyes are serious and always keen.
Her gaze makes me beautiful, too,
beautiful the way a morning is beautiful—
because it arrives every day as if
night cannot contain it; beautiful
the way the sun is beautiful, because
it needs no praise to share all its light.
Dear Gustav Klimt,
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, klimt, painting, portrait, sense of self on November 18, 2023| 12 Comments »
Please, don’t paint me today.
Maybe sketch me in pencil,
arms dangling soft by my sides.
Perhaps another day
I will gaze at the world
straight on, chin up,
eyes full of challenge
lips curled in risk.
Perhaps another day
I’ll stand with defiance,
long hair tossed back,
hands on my hips.
But today, dear man,
keep the eraser close.
I’m more paper than gesture.
more blank than bold stroke.
Today I have no mask,
no message, no need
to be seen. In fact,
Gustav, close your eyes.
Let me ask you about
when you met Typhon
and the Gorgons
and how things changed
from snakes to angel choirs
from skulls to golden kisses.
Here, good man.
Show me your face.
Please, hand me the pencil.
Learning to Love Life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ekphrasis, falling in love with the world, klimt, love, paradox, trust on November 11, 2023| 14 Comments »
We learn to love by being loved.
—Rafael J. Gonzalez, personal correspondence
There are days now when I feel so embraced by life
it’s as if life itself is pulling me into its great, strong arms,
surrounding me with warmth, tenderness, radiance,
as if life is whispering into my ear, loving and low,
I’ve got you, sweetheart, I’ve got you.
Not that I’ve forgotten how fear enters in
with its wide-eyed hunger, how grief gnaws at raw flesh,
how the heart’s walls fall down in cacophonous descent,
but there are, I must tell you, golden hours sparked with joy,
love-dappled days steeped in flowers and song
and I can’t pretend it’s not beautiful,
can’t not share how the same life that ravages us
also gathers us in so gently, so surely
that we, too, become golden, become sun and moon,
become rapturous bloom, become kiss.
inspired by The Beethoven Frieze (1901), Gustav Klimt
What the Mermaids Sang
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged depths, ekphrasis, klimt, ocean, truth on November 11, 2023| 9 Comments »
after Mermaids (1898) by Gustav Klimt
Truths are hidden from the surface.
—motto of Carl von Rokitansky, head of the Vienna School of Medicine, who influenced Klimt
We’ve traveled to the waters dark and cold
where the only light to be found
is the light you learn to make with your own body.
We have traveled to the depths
where we were crushed by pressure,
where the only way to move is slow,
where the only nourishment is what is dead,
and now we arrive on shores of gold.
There are seas in you, deep trenches
you’d rather perhaps not explore.
But you must meet the mystery—
must be changed by all you cannot know.
It will widen your eyes forever.
Dear swimmer, this change is the treasure.
Perhaps Inevitable
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, hiding, klimt, mask, revelation, vulnerability on November 5, 2023| 4 Comments »
after Gustav Klimt’s “Tragedie”
even now beneath
the stony gray mask of control
I feel it growing
a shimmering flower of purest gold
the naked truth
*
To sign up for the class that inspired this poem (and yesterday’s, too)–it’s not too late!–see below. Though the three-week class began last Friday, you could watch the recording of the first class and join us for the next two sessions.
Love, Sex, Death and Everything: A Creativity Playshop with Gustav Klimt
Nov. 3, 10, 17, 11a.m. -1 p.m. MST
Three weeks of exploring what lurks in the depths of humanity. Each class consists of a deep Jungian-oriented dive into music and myths behind Klimt’s images led by Kayleen Asbo, interwoven with Rosemerry leading an exploration of mortality, passion, terror and beauty in your own creative writing practice. For more information and to register, visit here.
In a Downpour
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged color, ekphrasis, encouragement, rain, smile on October 28, 2023| 6 Comments »
On an uphill slog
of a day,
your real smile
is like a single
red umbrella
in a long pageant
of black umbrellas.
Suddenly,
it’s all I can see.
This Land
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged clothes, ekphrasis, grief, wilderness on August 23, 2023| 8 Comments »
Grieving is a wilderness.
—Tara Brach, “Being with Love, Death and Grief,” July 13, 2023
Grieving is a wilderness I wear,
a long flaring coat
with cuffs of deep water
and hems lined with deserts
and birds that migrate
across my chest.
As soon as I think grief is one thing,
it’s another, vast expanses
with no known paths—
cracks to fall through,
cliffs to climb.
Sometimes, I slip from grief’s heavy silks,
and gaze at it as if it’s art.
There is terror in its folds.
But with buttes of gold
and storm-blue skies,
grief is also, my god,
so beautiful.
Love Letter to Vincent
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art, beauty, ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh on July 25, 2022| 6 Comments »
Oh Vincent,
There is in my heart
a small yellow room
with a small wooden table
with a dull yellow cloth
and a rounded clay vase
with your name scrawled in blue,
and it’s bursting with sunflowers,
all of them open, all of them turning,
turning toward the light,
which is to say the flowers face every which way.
There is light everywhere we dare to turn.
Consider this a love letter, Vincent,
a letter sent back in time,
a letter that impossibly arrives
just when you despair,
just when you believe no one cares about your art,
the letter that reaches you to say you are loved
in that exact moment you feel unlovable.
Let this be the letter in which you see
the sunflowers you sowed a hundred thirty years ago
have re-seeded themselves in me
and now grow rampant in my days,
golden petalled and flagrantly lovely.
And your stars, swirling, your wheat fields goldening,
your cypress reaching, your church bells unsinging,
you will find them all my words.
This is how love replants itself—
more love, old friend, more love.
Because you were so truly you,
so full of hope, so full of fear,
because you risked your everything,
I, too, will risk, will dare.
Consider this a love letter, Vincent,
the one that helps you see
how your life is linked to eternity.
Let this be a letter that says thank you, Vincent,
for teaching us new ways to see beauty.
Perhaps this letter will arrive
when you are in the yellow room,
or perhaps the asylum, perhaps in Neuwen,
and you, surprised to find it addressed to you,
will receive it and let the words in,
then hear your own startled voice saying,
It matters? as you pick up your brush
and begin again.
*
My dear friend composer/pianist/historian Kayleen Asbo and I want to offer you the video recording of our hour-long conversation about Vincent Van Gogh, loss and The Art of Creative Collaboration– click here.This project has been such an important part for each of us in holding on to hope and beauty during a dark and challenging time. If it speaks to a part of your own aching soul and you want to share it, you have our blessing to forward it to whomever you wish.
If you want to offer a donation in support of our work so that we can professionally record our project in both audio and video format, click here for our Go Fund Me account. And we have an anonymous donor who will match all funds donated before July 30!
If you want to engage in the full collaboration–Vincent’s paintings, Kayleen’s music, and my poems–I hope you will join us in “Love Letters to Vincent” on July 29, the day Vincent died, at 11 a.m. mountain time. We will present the entire collaboration, sending love letters back in time to honor this man who changed the way we see beauty. There will also be a chance to participate in a group creative activity, responding to his work, creating a giant love letter for Vincent. Sliding scale. It will be recorded and sent to all who register.
Love Letter to Vincent at the Saint-Remy Mental Asylum
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, love, night, perspective, starry night, Van Gogh on July 25, 2022| 10 Comments »
inspired by “The Starry Night” by Vincent van Gogh and the piano composition by Kayleen Asbo by the same name
Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.
―George Washington Carver
You teach us how to meet the night,
the quiet shadowed pools of night,
the night outside the glow of home,
the night beyond the sleep-warm bed.
You teach us how to fall in love with night,
the violet night, deep fields of night,
the swirling, churning curves of night,
the whirling, sweeping waves of night—
and oh the stars in their spiraling
you share their gold and pink and green,
a twinkling, a burst of shine,
a firmament in which to dream—
but there’s no way to see stars
if you don’t first befriend the dark.
You teach us how to love the dark,
the verdant, fertile wholesome dark.
Oh, to love what frightens us—
to meet dark with curiousness,
Though it’s mighty, tumultuous,
you teach us the dark is generous.
Vincent, you didn’t paint your asylum’s window bars.
You showed us only night. And stars.
*
My dear friend composer/pianist/historian Kayleen Asbo and I want to offer you the video recording of our hour-long conversation about Vincent Van Gogh, loss and The Art of Creative Collaboration– click here.This project has been such an important part for each of us in holding on to hope and beauty during a dark and challenging time. If it speaks to a part of your own aching soul and you want to share it, you have our blessing to forward it to whomever you wish.
If you want to offer a donation in support of our work so that we can professionally record our project in both audio and video format, click here for our Go Fund Me account. And we have an anonymous donor who will match all funds donated before July 30!
If you want to engage in the full collaboration–Vincent’s paintings, Kayleen’s music, and my poems–I hope you will join us in “Love Letters to Vincent” on July 29, the day Vincent died, at 11 a.m. mountain time. We will present the entire collaboration, sending love letters back in time to honor this man who changed the way we see beauty. There will also be a chance to participate in a group creative activity, responding to his work, creating a giant love letter for Vincent. Sliding scale. It will be recorded and sent to all who register.
Three Lines from Vincent van Gogh
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, paradox, roots, Van Gogh on July 23, 2022| 6 Comments »
each line taken separately from his letters or speech
inspired by his unfinished painting “Tree Roots,” which was first hung upside down,
and by Kayleen Asbo’s piano composition “Roots”
you will find beauty everywhere,
the root of everything—
and the sadness will last forever
*
the sadness will last forever,
the root of everything—
and you will find beauty everywhere
*
My dear friend composer/pianist/historian Kayleen Asbo and I want to offer you the video recording of our hour-long conversation about Vincent Van Gogh, loss and The Art of Creative Collaboration– click here.This project has been such an important part for each of us in holding on to hope and beauty during a dark and challenging time. If it speaks to a part of your own aching soul and you want to share it, you have our blessing to forward it to whomever you wish.
If you want to offer a donation in support of our work so that we can professionally record our project in both audio and video format, click here for our Go Fund Me account. And we have an anonymous donor who will match all funds donated before July 30!
If you want to engage in the full collaboration–Vincent’s paintings, Kayleen’s music, and my poems–I hope you will join us in “Love Letters to Vincent” on July 29, the day Vincent died, at 11 a.m. mountain time. We will present the entire collaboration, sending love letters back in time to honor this man who changed the way we see beauty. There will also be a chance to participate in a group creative activity, responding to his work, creating a giant love letter for Vincent. Sliding scale. It will be recorded and sent to all who register.
Two van Gogh Poetry/Piano Events
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged collaboration, ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh on July 6, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Dear readers,
As you know, I’ve been sharing lots of poems inspired by van Gogh’s paintings and the music of the incredible composer/pianist/historian Kayleen Asbo–and finally, a chance for you to hear her work! We will have two events together: the first one is Monday, July 11 for a conversation about collaborating across the arts. We’ll share about the process of creating “Love Letters to Vincent,” piano compositions and poems all conversing with the art of van Gogh, who was, in turn, responding to other artists of his day. Join the big conversation! It will be practical and passionate! Donation based.
for more info and to register, copy and paste this link:
https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07ej9t6q9ac30328ce&oseq=&c=&ch=
The second event, “Love Letters to Vincent” on Friday, July 29, will have all the pieces she composed, all the poems I wrote, all the art, plus a chance for you to write your own love letter to Vincent. This online salon of love and memory on the anniversary of Vincent Van Gogh’s death will be a heartfelt communal ritual of creativity.
Available on a sliding scale donation and also recorded for later viewing. for more info and to register, copy and paste this link:
http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ej8dm76j7c30686c&llr=q9rr4nabb
Longing to Be Seen
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dance, ekphrasis, hope, Kayleen Asbo, still life, Van Gogh on July 1, 2022| 6 Comments »
after the painting “The Bedroom” by Vincent van Gogh and the piano composition “Yellow Bed” by Kayleen Asbo
In the tilted room with the yellow bed,
hope waltzes on the wooden floor—
one, two, three, one, two, three—
not that you see it there,
it’s not obvious like the windows,
the paintings, the mirror, the pitcher, the chairs.
Hope is what you don’t see.
But it is there, beside the water glasses,
beside the long towel.
Hope sways so keenly
to snatches of melody
the whole room seems to sway.
And it’s one, two, three,
one, two, three; Who, hope says,
will dance with me? It promises
friendship. It promises rest.
Will you dance? it asks, a dizzy mess.
It promises community. It promises fame.
Will you dance? it asks, but it smells
of paint and faraway dreams.
It smells of madness and longing to be seen.
Will you dance? it says, its arms flung out.
Here is where Vincent said yes.
Some see a still life, but others see
the whirling, the twirling, the beautiful
spinning of hope, reeling hope,
fragile hope.
Looking at Landscape at Auvers in the Rain
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, rain, Van Gogh on June 29, 2022| 4 Comments »
inspired by Landscape at Auvers in the Rain by Vincent van Gogh and Rain at Auvers by Kayleen Asbo
Sometimes when it rains
I forget it will ever stop raining.
The rain, it falls,
it falls for days, it falls,
and the rain becomes
a metric imperative,
insistent as a stop watch,
familiar as the pulsing
of blood in the heart,
a throbbing, a beat so adamant
I forget any other tune.
Did you forget, Vincent,
the rain would stop?
Did you feel inside you
a storm as urgent, as bold,
as the rain you painted
long diagonal strokes?
I can’t look at your painting
without feeling inside me the rain,
the rain, feel it slant across my world
in thick dark lines.
I can’t look at the purples
and yellows of Auvers
without remembering how days
after you painted these hues,
you would take your life.
But how could I vilify the storm
even knowing what I do?
You found in the tumult
light.
You fueled the dampened, darkened world
with ecstatic gold.
You didn’t push the storm away, Vincent.
You let it drench you.
You shared with us all
how struggle, too,
is so terribly, terribly
beautiful.
Something Worth Sharing
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, depression, ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh on June 16, 2022| 9 Comments »
inspired by Eternity’s Gate by Vincent van Gogh and a piano composition by the same name by Kayleen Asbo, with quotes from van Gogh’s writings about the painting
Perhaps you, too, have sat
in the corner of a room,
back bent like winter grass,
elbows on your knees,
head weighty in your hands.
Spent. Exhausted.
Unsure how to live
another minute.
This is perhaps
the moment
we least want to be seen,
but if we are lucky,
perhaps an artist
with an eye for eternity
will feel it his duty
to find in our ruin
something precious,
something noble,
something unutterably moving
something to help us
know ourselves
as a part of infinity,
our life a brief song,
unbearably beautiful,
a masterpiece,
dark and descending
though it is.
Learning from “The Sower”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh on June 7, 2022| 10 Comments »
inspired by the painting “The Sower” by Vincent van Gogh and piano composition by the same name by Kayleen Asbo
Forever, the farmer depicted in oils
strides across the field throwing seeds
in an eternal ostinato sowing.
Forever, the sun behind his back
pulses radiant, golden, glowing.
Forever, the worker is caught mid-step
as he swings back his arm in the blue-ish light,
Forever his work is never done.
Forever there are mouths to feed
and grain to grow and the need
for one who unstintingly sows—
and there are thousands of ways to sow.
It is said the only thing necessary
for evil to triumph
is for good people to do nothing.
And so like van Gogh’s sower,
it is our work to keep sowing.
Though forever loss.
Though forever the poor.
Though forever depression.
Though forever war.
Though forever the crows descend
to follow the sower and eat the seed,
the sower sows despite.
The sower sows because—
The sower sows forever,
for that is what a sower does.
Almond Blossom
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bloom, blossom, ekphrasis, hope, Kayleen Asbo, spring, Van Gogh on May 28, 2022| 6 Comments »
inspired by Almond Blossom by Vincent van Gogh and music by Kayleen Asbo by the same name
I want to hang a painting
of almond blossoms
above your bed
so when you wake
the first thing you see
are delicate white petals
and a sky a thousand shades of blue.
I want you to wake every morning
into an ever-emerging sense of spring—
wake into sunshine,
wake to a world of splendor
and extravagant blossoming.
Of course, the fall.
Of course, the struggle.
Of course, the difficult days.
And of course, the almond blossoms,
painted in creams, pinks and greens
each one an insistent grace note
that lingers beyond its season,
promising something improbable
and utterly necessary,
like ever-blooming beauty,
like the light and airy perfume of hope.