The Artist and The Writer

I recently collaborated with artist, Tony Duce, and he provided the image below for one of my poems, Still Life. I’ve long wanted to collaborate with an artist like this and it was a very exciting, informative process. Tony posts his drawings and paintings on his blog, Duce: Drawings, Paintings, Words, writing words to go with his images to give them a story. He has created images for other poets in the past, and I felt fortunate that he consented to work with me on this one. I love how he connected to my poem. I particularly like the way he drew the nude with her back to us while facing us in the self portrait. Hands played a large part in the poem and I love the way he drew them in the background.

STILL LIFE

in the chipped china plate
you won’t throw away,
in arms that drape shoulders
graceful as the legs on the bistro chairs
enclosed in a frame.
The ruffled tutu of the fuchsia
falling off to ground
is frozen by the chance
of a backward glance.
The sun sets a twenty-second fire
to the ridge across the valley,
fleeting as the shrug of your shoulders
to have missed it.
The self-portrait I couldn’t finish
stands in the back of the closet
behind sketch pads full of hands.


Visit Tony for more information on the painting itself and to view some of his other amazing work. I hope to collaborate with him again in the future. As I told him, seeing my poem come to life under his hand makes me want to concentrate again on poetry and take a hiatus from the angst of novel-writing.

So what do you think? Have any of you done something like this before?

Still Life In A Killing Frost

The sun burst out from under a cloud bank
and the grass is once again green.
The trees are shanks of orange
and the fields are gold.
The mossy sides
of the dying ash shimmer
as though it weren't so
and the mums are earth afire.
Everything faces east.
Still. Still. Still.
Not even a raucous crow greets the day.
But the clouds prevailed, opened and swallowed.
The trees are black and the grass dormant.
Mums sway under the weight of frost
and the crow awakes
with moving eye.

Still Life

in the chipped china plate
you won't throw away;
in arms that drape shoulders,
graceful as the legs on the bistro chairs,
enclosed in a frame.
The ruffled tutu of the fuchsia
falling off to ground
is frozen by the chance
of a backward glance.
The sun sets a twenty-second fire
to the ridge across the valley from the shelter,
fleeting as the shrug of your shoulders
to have missed it.
The self-portrait I couldn't finish
stands in the back of the closet,
behind sketch pads full of hands.