Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Margaret Atwood

The text for this painting is from a poem by Margaret Atwood. Here is the original.

A Place: Fragments

i
Here on the rim, cringing
under the cracked whip of winter
we live
in houses of ice,
but not because we want to:
in order to survive
we make what we can and have to
with what we have.

ii

Old woman I visited once
out of my way
in a little-visited province:

she had a neat
house, a clean parlour
though obsolete and poor:

a cushion with a fringe;
glass animals arranged
across the mantlepiece
(a swan, a horse, a bull);
a mirror;
a teacup sent from Scotland;
several heraldic spoons;
a lamp; and in the centre
of the table, a paperweight:
hollow glass globe
filled with water, and
a house, a man, a snowstorm.
The room was as
dustless as possible
and free of spiders.

I
stood in the door-way,
at the fulcrum where

this trivial but
stringent inner order
held its delicate balance
with the random scattering or
clogged merging of
things: ditch by the road; dried
reeds in the wind; flat
wet bush, grey sky
sweeping away outside.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Beautiful, Judy! I always loved that poem. I'm a Margaret Atwood fan. I took a Women's Literature course in university and we studied some of her poetry, short stories and novels.

I once dined at this really neat place (http://www.juiceforlife.com/) in Toronto and there she was, sitting at the table next to me! I didn't speak with her though! I was A) Overwhelmed because Margaret Atwood was sitting at the table next to me and B) Thought that perhaps she'd just like to enjoy her meal without being harrassed by her readers.

I love the painting and the fact that the text is from an Atwood poem just reminded me of that experience I just told you about :)

Judy Martin said...

Christine, thank you so much for your comment. I love Margaret Atwood's poetry.
If you like, you can bid online for this painting and many others by following the links in the next post about the Kennedy gallery art auction.

Unknown said...

Hi Judy! Ooooh! Exciting! I'll be checking out the Kennedy Art Auction links! I can't wait!

artmixter said...

This is just glorious