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| Francis Grant Portrait of Daisy Grant (the artist's daughter) 1857 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Francis Grant Daisy at the Piano ca. 1860 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| James Archer A Woman Sewing ca. 1850 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
Helping My Daughter Move into Her First Apartment
This is all I am to her now:
a pair of legs in running shoes,
two arms strung with braided wire.
She heaves a carton sagging with CDs
at me and I accept it gladly, lifting
with my legs, not bending over,
raising each foot high enough
to clear the step. Fortunate to be
of any use to her at all,
I wrestle, stooped and single-handed,
with her mattress in the stairwell,
saying nothing as it pins me,
sweating, to the wall. Vacuum cleaner,
spiny cactus, five-pound sacks
of rice and lentils slumped
against my heart: up one flight
of stairs and then another,
down again with nothing in my arms.
– Sue Ellen Thompson (2006)
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| James Archer Alone - A Man Sitting Before an Open Fireplace ca. 1850 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| James Archer Death Mask of Sir Walter Scott ca. 1850 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Thomas Annan Portrait of Horatio McCulloch, Artist ca. 1860 albumen print National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Jose Maria Mora Portrait of an actress in the role of Ophelia ca. 1890 albumen print Rijksmuseum Amsterdam |
The Second Sex
After the first sex, there is no other.
I stick my gender in a blender
and click send. Voilà!
Your new ex-girlfriend.
You cuckold me with your husband.
I move a box with Ludacris.
The captain turns on, we begin our descent.
Be gentle with me, I'm new at this.
I say the wrong thing. I have OCD.
My obsessive compulsions are disorderly.
I say the wrong thing, did I already say?
I drive my dominatrix away.
The coyote drives her in a false-bottomed van.
He drops her in the desert. The bluffs are tan.
She'll get a job at Chili's picking up butts.
I feel ya, Ophelia, I say to my nuts.
And there is pansies. That's for thoughts.
– Michael Robbins (2013)
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| Fratelli Alinari Carte-de-visite portrait of unknown woman ca. 1865 photograph National Galleries of Scotland |
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| William Brodie Bust of Hugh Miller, Geologist and Author 1857 marble National Galleries of Scotland |
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| Thomas Woolner Bust of Henry Christy, Collector and Donor 1868 marble British Museum |
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| George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle Marietta - Roma ca. 1865-66 drawing British Museum |
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| Charles Samuel Keene Lady in Victorian Costume before 1891 drawing National Galleries of Scotland |
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| William Dyce St Catherine ca. 1840 oil on panel National Galleries of Scotland |
The Poet and His Poems
1.
The poem is this:
a nuance of sound
delicately operating
upon a cataract of sense.
Vague. What a stupid
image. Who operates?
And who is operated
on? How can a nuance
operate on anything?
It is all in
the sound. A song.
Seldom a song. It should
be a song – made of
particulars, wasps,
a gentian – something
immediate, open
scissors, a lady's
eyes – the particulars
of a song waking
upon a bed of sound.
2.
Stiff jointed poets
or the wobble
headed who chase
vague images and think –
because they feel
lovely movements
upon the instruments
of their hearts –
that they are gifted
forget the
exchange, how much
is paid and how little
when you count it
in your hand you
get for it later in
the market. It's
a constant mystery
no less in the
writing of imaginative
lines than in love.
– William Carlos Williams (1939)
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| John Faed Study for Queen Margaret Tudor's Defiance of the Scottish Parliament before 1861 oil on panel National Galleries of Scotland |
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| James Guthrie In the Orchard 1886 oil on canvas National Galleries of Scotland |
– poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)