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| Seamus Nicolson Jason 2000 photograph Tate Gallery |
Shopping for One
Waving at everyone who honked,
thinking how uncommonly friendly
complete strangers had become,
she found her sack of groceries
atop the car when she got home,
potato chips and cookies blessed
with a balance she couldn't explain
except to say the ice cream
and cans of frosting on the bottom
held fast at each turning
to counteract her absent-mindedness.
Not wanting this token of luck
after all the times luck had failed her,
she smashed a jar of olives in the street,
splattering the air with sourness
and freeing the random green wobble
that made the world seem right again.
– Neal Bowers (2003)
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| Jeff Wall A Sapling held by a Post 2000 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Valeska Soares Fainting Couch (Prototype) 2002 fibreboard, perspex, fabric, polyfibre, flowers Tate Gallery |
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| John Bellany Homage to David B 2002 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
De Piscatione
Fishing, if I a fisher may protest,
Of pleasures is the sweetest, of sports the best,
Of exercises the most excellent.
Of recreations the most innocent.
But now the sport is marred, and wote ye why?
Fishes decrease, and fishers multiply.
– Thomas Bastard (1598)
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| Paula Rego War 2003 pastel on paper, mounted on aluminum Tate Gallery |
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| Stan Douglas Barbacoa Vedado 2004 chromogenic print Tate Gallery |
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| Andreas Gursky Bahrain I 2005 photograph Tate Gallery |
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| Richard Hamilton Beatles 2007 digital print Tate Gallery |
from The Singers
They are threatening to leave but you may still catch them
saying goodbye stealthed in the cedar and cypress
at dawn in the dark clarity between sleep and waking
A run of five notes on a black flute
another and another buried deep in the mix
how many melodies can the air hold
And what they sing so lovely and so meaningless
may urge itself upon you with the ache
of something just beyond the point of being remembered
the trace of a brave thought in the face of sadness
– Craig Arnold (2007)
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| Albert Oehlen Loa 2007 acrylic paint and oil paint and spray paint and paper collage on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Gillian Carnegie Black Square 2008 oil on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Henry Wessel Incidents 026 2012 gelatin silver print Tate Gallery |
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| John Riddy Palermo (Piazza Marina) 2012 photograph Tate Gallery |
My Radiant Eye
Or is it on account of my radiant eye
I have lived so long? – I never slept
in the study hall, or called anyone
by an improper name. I never urinated in
a desolate synagogue. I never ate or drank
in a desolate synagogue or picked my teeth.
I did not walk into a desolate synagogue
in the summer just because of the heat,
nor in winter just because of cold rain.
Also, I know one may not deliver a eulogy
for an individual inside a desolate synagogue.
But you can read scripture inside a desolate
synagogue, or you can teach in a desolate
synagogue, or deliver eulogies for the community.
When synagogues are deserted they are
to be left alone and weeds allowed to grow.
One should not pick the weeds, lest there be
anguish that the synagogue is in ruins.
When are the synagogues to be swept
so that weeds do not grow inside them?
When they are in use. – When synagogues are
in ruins, weeds are not to be picked there.
Because I know these things I was approved,
although unworthy, after a three-day oral
examination before the king of Sicily
to whom by custom the power of approval
is entrusted. Thereafter, I have worn the
laurel crown – my eye radiant to this day.
– Allen Grossman (2007)
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| John Riddy Palermo (Giardini Inglese) 2013 photograph Tate Gallery |
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| John Riddy London (Garrick) 2008-2009 photograph Tate Gallery |
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)