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| James Rosenquist Broome Street Trucks after Herman Melville 1963 oil on linen Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| James Rosenquist Volunteer 1963-64 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| James Rosenquist Spaghetti and Grass 1965 lithograph Art Institute of Chicago |
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| James Rosenquist For Love 1965 screenprint Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| James Rosenquist Dusting off Roses 1965 lithograph Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| James Rosenquist Circles of Confusion 1965 screenprint Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| James Rosenquist Expo 67 Mural Firepole 1967 lithograph Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| James Rosenquist See-Saw Class Systems (Chicago mayor Richard Daley) 1968 screenprint Art Institute of Chicago |
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| James Rosenquist Night Smoke 1969-70 lithograph Art Institute of Chicago |
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| James Rosenquist Night Smoke 1969-70 lithograph Art Institute of Chicago |
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| James Rosenquist Night Smoke 1969-70 lithograph Art Institute of Chicago |
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| James Rosenquist Night Smoke 1969-70 lithograph Art Institute of Chicago |
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| James Rosenquist Flamingo Capsule 1970 oil on canvas Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao |
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| James Rosenquist Industrial Cottage 1977 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| James Rosenquist The Persistance of Electrons in Space 1987 etching and aquatint Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| James Rosenquist Talking Flowers Ideas 1987 lithograph Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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| James Rosenquist House of Fire 1989 lithograph and pressed paper pulp National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
from Persephone the Wanderer
In grief, after the daughter dies,
the mother wanders the earth.
She is preparing her case;
like a politician
she remembers everything and admits
nothing.
For example, her daughter's
birth was unbearable, her beauty
was unbearable: she remembers this.
She remembers Persephone's
innocence, her tenderness –
What is she planning, seeking her daughter?
She is issuing
a warning whose implicit message is:
what are you doing outside my body?
You ask yourself
why is the mother's body safe?
The answer is
this is the wrong question, since
the daughter's body
doesn't exist, except
as a branch of the mother's body
that needs to be
reattached at any cost.
When a god grieves it means
destroying others (as in war)
while at the same time petitioning
to reverse agreements (as in war also):
if Zeus will get her back,
winter will end.
Winter will end, spring will return.
The small pestering breezes
that I so loved, the idiot yellow flowers –
Spring will return, a dream
based on a falsehood:
that the dead return.
Persephone
was used to death. Now over and over
her mother hauls her out again –
You must ask yourself
are the flowers real? If
Persephone "returns" there will be
one of two reasons:
either she was not dead or
she is being used
to support a fiction –
I think I can remember
being dead. Many times, in winter,
I approached Zeus. Tell me, I would ask him,
how can I endure the earth?
And he would say,
in a short time you will be here again.
And in the time between
you will forget everything:
those fields of ice will be
the meadows of Elysium.
– Louise Glück (2006)