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| John Riddy Rome (Borghese) 1999 gelatin silver print Tate, London |
INVENTING THE PIANO
In the night he dreamed hammers, silver as song.
Under the pale cap of his hair with his eyes
shut tight against the Paduan dark he heard
in his sleep how the sound was made, how plink
became the shimmer of notes drawn out,
lasting and lasting, outlasting breath even, dying
finally on the air as the quiver of strings ceased.
It was a simple matter after that, the crafting
of what he had dreamed, action that would give voice
to what he had conceived. Soundboard of cypress,
a veneer of ebony, tiny springs made of hog's bristle –
gravicembalo col piano e forte – there he had it,
the loud and the soft, sound that could flow like oil.
He, Bartolommeo Cristofori, had made a new thing.
All of it opened before him. The small hammers flung
themselves at the strings. A low arm, a light wrist, fingers
close to the keys. A binding together of notes, legato,
and the vast possible, smooth graces, shaked graces,
arpeggios, turns, trills, the clear semitones. Speech
of the heart, he called it, più piano, instrument which can sing.
– Laurie O'Brien (1995)
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| Lisa Milroy Room 1997 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| Paul Winstanley TV Room V 1997 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| Paula Rego Him 1996 etching Tate, London |
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| Sabine Moritz Shower with Table 1993 oil and acrylic on canvas Tate, London |
from IN THE MUSEUM
Imagine a museum without art,
an impossible rotunda of granite glowing
bare and roseate under the tungsten beam.
Expertly designed for show and tell,
its archways and erotic surfaces
endlessly repeat around the night-
filled space. Making your way along each curve
of the charmed corridor, you would reach out
to feel the smoothness breathe under your hand,
just as your sharp heels, clacking smartly,
would play the music you were waiting for.
– Martha Hollander (1990)
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| Sabine Moritz Two Washbasins 1993 oil and acrylic on canvas Tate, London |
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| David Hockney Four Flowers in Still Life 1990 lithograph Tate, London |
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| Thomas Struth Kyoko and Tomoharu Murakami, Tokyo, 1991 1991 colour photograph Tate, London |
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| Thomas Struth The Shimada Family, Yamaguchi, Japan, 1986 1986 colour photograph Tate, London |
PENELOPE GARDENING
Soon I'll be finished weaving ivy
and the new vines
will be patterned and sufficient.
Arc will balance angle.
Green will bare
only in suggestion
the comely white
of painted steel.
Sunlight will wax the leaves
rainfall has cleansed.
My trellis will not need me
and I'll be freed
to obligation.
Soon –
unless tonight
another storm unties my bracings
and batters my poor branches
out of balance.
Unless tonight
another shoot
grows willful out of pattern.
Unless tonight
I dream
a whole new possibility
of order.
– Susan Fox (1987)
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| Terry Winters Monkey Puzzle 1987 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| Patrick Caulfield Interior with a Picture 1985-86 acrylic on canvas Tate, London |
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| Steven Campbell The Dangerous Early and Late Life of Lytton Strachey 1985 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| Richard Hamilton Lobby 1984 collotype and screenprint Tate, London |
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| Bill Woodrow English Heritage - Humpty Fucking Dumpty 1987 wood, metal, paper Tate, London |
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)