Chagall and Me

One the painters who has most inspired my poetry is Marc Chagall. I wrote a series of poems, "Eva's Voice," based on his work (it appears in Dear God, Dear Dr. Heartbreak: New and Selected Poems, Sheep Meadow Press, 2009). I have written an essay, "How Eva Victoria Perrera Learned to Fly with Chagall," about Chagall and my imaginary poet, Eva Victoria Perrera. Eva was a Sephardic Jew from Thessaloniki who survived the Holocaust. There's another essay that I wrote about this project, " In Defense of a Poetics of Witness." There's more on "Eva's Voice" in my post "Play + Practice = Work."

"Bella with White Collar," Marc Chagall, 1917

The Blue House, Marc Chagall

"The Fiddler," Marc Chagall, 1912-13

Gwendolyn Brooks' "The Bean Eaters"

This semester I will be teaching a course, cross-listed with the Department of Women's and Gender Studies, entitled "Women Poets, Visual Art, and Activism." Last year, I taught a course in Poetry and Visual Art. In honor of Martin Luther King Day, we began with Robert Hayden's poem "Monet's Waterlilies." This year, we begin with Gwendolyn Brooks'  "The Bean Eaters," the title poem of her third collection of poems (The Bean Eaters, 1960). The poem is based on Vincent Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters."

The Potato Eaters, Vincent van Gogh, April 1885, Oil on Canvas
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The Bean Eaters

BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.   

Dinner is a casual affair.

Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,   

Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.

Two who have lived their day,

But keep on putting on their clothes   

And putting things away.

And remembering ...

Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,

As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

From the Poetry Foundation Website. Gwendolyn Brooks, “The Bean Eaters” from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1963 by Gwendolyn Brooks. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Gwendolyn Brooks.

Robert Hayden's "Monet's Waterlilies"

Today, on our first day of class, in honor of Martin Luther King Day, we will discuss Robert Hayden's "Monet's Waterlilies." 

Claude Monet, Reflections of Clouds on the Water Lily Pond
Source

Robert Hayden
Source

Monet's Waterlilies


Today as the news from Selma and Saigon
poisons the air like fallout,
I come again to see
the serene, great picture that I love.

Here space and time exist in light
the eye like the eye of faith believes.
The seen, the known
dissolve in iridescence, become
illusive flesh of light
that was not, was, forever is.

O light beheld as through refracting tears.
Here is the aura of that world
each of us has lost.
Here is the shadow of its joy.

--Robert Hayden


Museum of Modern Art site that explores Claude Monet's "Waterlilies"