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| Lucian Freud The Painter's Mother 1982 etching Tate Gallery |
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| Richard Hamilton Adonis in Y-fronts 1963 screenprint Tate Gallery |
Feeling the Draft
We were young and it was an accomplishment
to have a body. No one said this. No one
said much beyond "throw me that sky" or
"can the lake sleep over?" The lake could not.
The lake was sent home and I ate too many
beets, went around with beet-blood tongue
worrying about my draft card-burning brother
going to war. Other brothers became holes
at first base at war, then a few holes
Harleying back from war in their always
it seemed green jackets with pockets galore
and flaps for I wondered bullets, I wondered
how to worship these giants. None of them
wanted to talk to me or anyone it seemed
but the river or certain un-helmeted curves
at high speed, I had my body
and flung it over branches and fences
toward my coming sullenness as the gravity
of girls' hips began and my brother
marched off to march against the war.
I watched different masses of bodies on tv,
people saying no to the jungle with grenades
and people saying no to the grenades with signs
and my father saying no to all of them
with the grinding of his teeth he spoke with.
I'd pedal after the nos up and down a hill
like it was somehow a rosary, somehow my body
was a prayer I could chant by letting it loose
with others like me milling around
the everything below five feet tall
that was ours, the everything below
the adult line of sight that was ours
to hold as long as we could: a year,
a summer. Until the quarterback came back
without . . . well, without. When the next Adonis
stepped up to throw the bomb.
– Bob Hicok (2010)
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| Bernard Meninsky Sketch of male figure's back wearing a vest before 1950 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Alexandre Jacovleff Seated Model ca. 1933-38 drawing Tate Gallery |
from The Artist and the Nude
Boredom veils the brimming of her eyes.
She listens to an angry buzz of flies
And muses: "Timelessness must be surprised
By eyes in time, and pears are lovelier,
By far, in hand than on a picture plate."
She glances at a plaster cupid, masked
And aiming aimlessly, and laughs away
Pose, fuming sir, and art's unchanging day.
– Stephen Stepanchev (1957)
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| Alexandre Jacovleff Crouching Model from the front ca. 1933-38 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Alexandre Jacovleff Female Torso ca. 1933-38 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Alexandre Jacovleff Recumbent Model ca. 1933-39 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Alexandre Jacovleff Crouching Model from the side ca. 1933-38 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Giorgio Morandi Hilltop at Evening 1938 intaglio print Tate Gallery |
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| Giorgio Morandi Still Life with very fine hatching 1933 etching Tate Gallery |
Still Life
Like walking into a painting
all light but no sound
the usual fruit in a bowl
an open book on the table
a lifetime of polished mahogany
beginning to crack along the grain
how to explain
to all this furniture
you are not returning.
I sit in your chair.
The air settles
as if I could fit into the framework
of your life.
Listen, I hear you say
this is what I wanted you to know –
I have always loved you.
It's cold
colder than you would believe.
– Florence Grossman (1983)
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| Wyndham Lewis Crouching Nude ca. 1919 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| David Jones Académie (made while a teenage student at Camberwell School of Art) 1913 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Stanley Spencer Study for Apple Gatherers ca. 1912 drawing Tate Gallery |
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| Charles Conder Spanish Set 1905 lithograph Tate Gallery |
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| Hamo Thornycroft The Kiss 1916 marble (life size) Tate Gallery |
from Mother and Daughter
The mother says, I am afraid.
The daughter says, I am afraid.
The mother says, My feet are cold.
The daughter says, My feet are cold.
The mother says, The car is sinking.
The daughter says Yes, the car is sinking.
The mother says, I am too young for this.
The daughter says, I want to grow old.
The mother says, I can see the sky,
and the daughter says, I can also see the sky.
How about the moon, the mother says,
and the daughter says, I can see the moon.
– Hayan Charara (2016)
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)