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.

STILL LIFE IN DISARRAY

by Suzanne Morris

after a photograph by Sergei Ilnitsky, 2015

Sergei Ilnitsky, a Russian photographer of the European Pressphoto Agency, won the 2015 World Press Photo First Prize in the General News Category, Singles, for this image of damaged goods lying in a kitchen in downtown Donetsk, in war-torn eastern Ukraine.

Imagine, just

moments before.

No artist could more deftly

arrange these few articles

while conjuring

a still life in Ukraine.

See the embroidered lace curtain

swept aside to reveal

a kitchen table covered in

dainty muslin,

on which are placed

a small bowl of ripe tomatoes,

a lidded porcelain teapot with

poppies on the side; nearby

stout mugs, an empty tin can,

a cutting board with knives.

The view, tilting from above

and to the left,

the artist’s palette dabbed with

simple colors in homespun hues–

vermilion red, salmon pink,

maize yellow, white, gray blue.

Not seen, but understood:

the chairs drawn near,

a hand reaching for the teapot

to fill the mugs 

and slice tomato wedges

for tea

in the midday light

streaming through the 

kitchen window.

What family had sat 

having tea?

Were the children

present?

Did all escape

the bomb,

exploding in near range:

still life impastoed with

shattered window glass

and dust?

But no, a new color,

burnt umber,

spatters the scene;

it soils the table cover and

collects in indentations of

lace flowers and leaves.

A novelist with eight published works, Suzanne Morris began writing poetry in the context of her fiction.  Eventually she shifted her creative focus from novels to poetry only.  Her poems appeared in No Season for Silence - Texas Poets and Pandemic (Kallisto Gaia Press, 2020) and have frequently appeared online in Texas Poetry Assignment.

BEST FACE FORWARD

by George Held

Image: Selfie by Kresten Forsman

Reinvention, America’s
Most alluring cosmetic, now
Flourishes on social media.

Depressed or bored with how
You look, just change the foto
On Facebook and take a bow

With the newly enhanced you to
Wow your followers and friends;
Just watch the “likes” pile up, the “So

Cutes!” and “Awesomes!” making amends
For your blues and boosting self-esteem
Until some new rejection sends

You to take an iPhone selfie that you deem
A darling reflection of your best self-image,
Just the photograph that will redeem

You in the eyes of others, make you the rage
Of the moment on Instagram, whatever.
Yes, the chance to reinvent our visage

Proves again the genius of the founders
Of “Face”book – long may its format last
While we forever change our pictures

To meet the faces that we delete so fast
Online, blowing off each other’s horns,
That we have lost our sense of the past.

Try as we might, we cannot be reborn
Like our faces, however cosmeticized,
And inevitably age turns its scorn
 
On all of us. When you’ve compromised
Your pilgrim face and bookmarked your still life,
Your soul cannot try on another size.

George Held, a regular contributor to The New Verse News, has a new book out soon from Poets Wear Prada, Culling: New & Selected Nature Poems.