PAULA REGO DIED TODAY

by stella graham-landau

The artist Paula Rego, who died [on June 8] aged 87, once said that she liked “to work on the edge”, and her many series of paintings and drawings, about the subjugation of women, abortion and the marriage market, cut across social perceptions of the role of women, and disrupted the male view of women and their sexuality. —The Guardian, June 8, 2022. Above: Abortion protest. Triptych, 1997-98, which helped change public opinion in Portugal. Photograph: Paula Rego, courtesy Marlborough International Fine Art via The Guardian.

a moment ago she was here

now all that is left are 

her dirty pieces of broken pastels

and a body of work

that leaves viewers disturbed

i am distressed that she is gone

no one is left to explain what she meant

painting women who look like men

and a man posed naked and emaciated

like a rotten pear in a still life

what would she paint next

what repellant image to make her point

she is no longer

still life or any life

only a collection

of discomforting images

and her signature

a reminder

life is stark

stella graham-landau is a writer and artist living in richmond, va. she has recently been published in Bare: An Unzipped Anthology.

BUFFALO SOLDIER

by Katherine West

America’s growing Black community is “not a monolithic population, but one that has people of many different demographic, social and economic characteristics and many different experiences in their backgrounds.” Mark Hugo Lopez, Director of Race and Ethnicity Research at Pew Research Center, told The Root in an interview, March 30, 2021.

On the other side 

of the street 

walks a young

Black man 

going to work 

perhaps 

or perhaps 

like me 

getting a coffee 

while the clothes spin

Perhaps 

his great great great

grandfather 

was a Buffalo Soldier 

Perhaps 

his family 

settled here 

before New Mexico became a state 

Perhaps he's a painter

that paints his

history 

how history 

surrounds him 

like a herd 

steaming and stamping 

in the morning cold 

jumpy

dangerous 

or quietly 

pulling 

at the turf 

The herd contains him

shifts 

when he takes 

a careful 

step 

but any sudden 

movement 

could cause a stampede 

leaving the painter crushed 

to nothing 

at one 

finally 

with his desert home 

with the dry grass 

the wind riffles 

like the tawny fur 

of the great cat 

he becomes 

when he paints 

at one

finally

with the invisible wind 

uncontained 

free to walk the world 

unhated 

Katherine West lives in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. She has written three collections of poetry: The Bone Train, Scimitar Dreams, and Riddle, as well as one novel, Lion Tamer.  Her poetry has appeared in journals such as Writing in a Woman's Voice, Lalitamba, Bombay Gin, The New Verse News, Tanka Journal, Splash!, Eucalypt, and Southwest Word Fiesta. The New Verse News nominated her poem "And Then the Sky" for a Pushcart Prize in 2019. In addition she has had poetry appear as part of art exhibitions at the Light Art Space gallery in Silver City, New Mexico and at the Windsor Museum in Windsor, Colorado. Using the name Kit West, Katherine's new novel, When Night Comes, A Christmas Carol Revisited has just been released, and a selection of poetry entitled Raising the Sparks will come out in March of 2021, both published by Breaking Rules Publishing. She is presently at work on the sequel to When Night Comes. It is called Slave, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Revisited. She is also an artist.

FOURTH ASTRONAUT

by Rick Mullin

Painting by Alan Bean, the fourth astronaut (Apollo 12) to have walked on the moon. He died on May 26, 2018. 

“I think of myself not as an astronaut who paints,
 but as an artist who was once an astronaut” —Alan Bean, Apollo


His name connoting photosynthesis
in pods on earth, he traveled to the moon
and stood in fields of cobalt dust and darkness.
No one saw it in his way—the dune
of oxidates, the earthrise glinting fire
on the helmet of his mate. The silent night.
He gathered specimens of stone and scraps
of wreckage from an unmanned satellite.
He worked for seven hours, drawing maps
in his imagination to a higher
landscape in a timeless super 8
depicting the recurrent astral mystery.
The dream. While others met a common fate
in business, he resolved on painting history,
unpacking samples to a canvas of desire.

Rick Mullin's newest poetry collection is Transom.

WHY I AM NOT A POET

by Gil Hoy

Poem-Painting by Frank O'Hara & Norman Bluhm. Image source: Lingo 7

I am not a poet; I am a lawyer. Why?
Sometimes, I think I would rather be a poet,
but I am not. Well, for instance

Frank O'Hara is starting to write a poem.
I drop in. "Sit down and have a drink,"
he says. I drink; we drink. I look up. "You have the words
‘Black Lives Matter’ in your poem." "Yes," he says.
I go, and the days go by, and I drop in again. The writing of the poem
is going on, and I go, and the days go by. I drop in.
The poem is finished. "Where are the words
‘Black Lives Matter’ in your poem?" All that's left is a painting
of dead black boys and dead black men to illustrate the poem.
"It was too much," Mr. O'Hara says. "And I've decided
I'm both a poet and a painter."

But me?  One day, I am thinking about racism, justice
and the law, about praying for God to bring Michael Brown Jr.
back from the dead. I rehearse my argument, all about
why Mr. Brown should be saved.  Pretty soon, it’s a whole litany
of arguments.  And there should be so much more. Not only about
Michael Brown’s life, but also the lives of Trayvon Martin, Christian Taylor,
Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Jordan Davis, Africa, Dontre Hamilton, Ezell Ford,
John Crawford III, Dante Parker, Eric Harris, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray,
all the black boys and all the black men whose lives have been needlessly taken.
Days go by. I am prepared for God’s court. My legal argument is finished,
but I haven't mentioned racism yet. It's twelve arguments and the court reporter
faithfully transcribes  what I say to the judge.

When I see the transcription, it's titled "Racism."  And one day, I see Mr. O'Hara's
poem and painting, collectively titled: “Black Lives Matter.”

Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer and writer. He studied poetry at Boston University, while receiving a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Gil received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. His writing has appeared most recently in The Montucky Review, The Potomac, The New Verse News, The Boston Globe and The Dallas Morning News.

SOILED CANVAS

by Jerome Betts


Oil in seabirds death identified --Press Association, Feb 6, 2013

Birds found on Chesil beach have been taken to the RSPCA's West Hatch centre near Taunton. Photograph: Geoff Moore/Rex Features. Image source: The Guardian

A painter's boast, one long past day,
Beside his Guillemots and Spray:
‘Such are the touches I can give
That when they’re caught in oil, they live.’

This week, his grandsons found the sands
Left grease and feathers on their hands
And told small children asking why
That when they’re caught in oil, they die.


Jerome Betts lives in Devon, England, and has contributed verse to LightenUp OnLine, New Verse News, Per Contra, Snakeskin and Tilt-A-Whirl, as well as numerous print publications.