ARTSPEAK! Portraits poem "Portrait of a Writer"

Hello and Happy National Poetry Month! Here it is, day 10 of ARTSPEAK!: Portraits, my National Poetry Month poem-a-day project, during which I am looking, listening with my spirit ear, and asking these subject to share with me their secrets.

But first: be sure to check out Penny's line of our 2017 Progressive Poem over at a penny and her jots. I love how our poem is progressing!

Here are the ARTSPEAK! Portraits poems so far:

9. "Speaking of the Weather" after Profile of a Woman by Fujishima Takeji
8. "Happiness" after Self-Portrait with Straw Hat by Elisabeth Vigee le Brun

7. "Virginia, Sitting for a Portrait" after Portrait of Virginia (Little Girl) by Frida Kahlo

6. "Paint-by-Number" after Portrait of a Woman by Alexei von Jawlensky

4. "I Am" after The White Cloud, Head Chief of the Iowas by George Catlin

3. "What If?" after Portrait of Camille Roulin by Vincent van Gogh

2. "The Lady Confesses" after Portrait of a Lady with Mask and Cherries by Benjamin Wilson

1. "Mona Lisa in Love" after Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

After a weekend of women, I decided to write about a man. :) Here's what he told me:

Portrait of a Writer

- after “Oskar Maria Graf” by Georg Schrimpf

Forget the suit; my pen is

moved by yeast and flour-dust,

by warm milk jetting into a pail.

Many lives have shuffled through my hands,

their names stamped and ink-stained.

Once we might have met in a lift –

what floor, please? –

my gloved fingers punching the buttons.

And now we meet here, at the intersection

of paint and friendship. Together

we scritch-scratch a phrase, a line.

We build skyscrapers with glass walls,

We say, Let there be light!

- Irene Latham

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Readers, I didn't know the subject of this painting Oskar Maria Graf was a writer -- or that he and the painter George Schimpf were friends -- until I read this article. I've incorporated bits of Oskar's life into the poem, too -- he was born to a baker-father and farmgirl-mother, and before he was a writer worked as a postal worker and lift operator. I wanted to include these specific details, but I also wanted to write a poem about the universal aspects of being a writer... which is how I came up with the God-like last line. We are all creators, right? :) Thank you for reading! And for your encouragement. It helps! xo