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Image:  Tear, archival digital print (manipulated photograph)

Lately I’ve been steeped in C. S. Harris’ Sebastian St Cyr mysteries, set in the early 1800s.  Which has brought to mind the wonderful works of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec created later that century.  Some years ago, after seeing his Elles lithographs at a Vancouver Art Gallery show, I wrote a sequence of poems responding to those powerful images.  Each poem, titled after the lithograph, is in the voice of the woman depicted, either speaking to us, the viewers, or to herself, or commenting on Lautrec’s image. Lautrec created these lithographs as homages to the women, after living with them in their brothel at the rue des Moulins, with the intention of depicting them going about their everyday lives, seeing them as fully human, not defined solely by their profession. Here are a couple of poems from that sequence (published in Suddenly, So Much, Exile Editions):

Woman with a Tray — Breakfast;
Madame Baron and Mademoiselle Popo


Is this the way she will
remember me?  A mother with her back turned
to her daughter —

                               I would take her
away from here if I could.  Perhaps
if I had abandoned
her at birth…

                      Now all I can do is take away
the tray, worry about her
inadequate breakfast, coffee
with a bit of cream.  She watches

me leave, is still in bed, reclining
on her side, hair
tousled, head propped
in her hand.  Where on earth did he find

all that love in her eyes?


Woman Washing Herself — The Toilette


When you think about it, really it is odd
the way we choose one part
of the body
                    to love best.  How we

bargain with God over tragedies
that may never happen —

take an arm if you must, but leave me
two good legs;
                          my hearing
but never my sight
        
                                This young artist
loves women's backs.  While he was drawing
mine, I asked him to put down
his crayon, and wash that bit in the middle
I almost can't reach.
        
                                   Me, I adore
breasts, and the way you get a glimpse
of mine, full and firm in the small
mirror above the wash basin
is my favourite part of this picture.



These are ekphrastic poems, the name given to poetry written in response to visual art.