Post by shayepoet on Jul 15, 2008 20:09:16 GMT 2
A Woman Divided: Poems Inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe
Judy Longley
My inspiration for writing this book began in 1980
when I saw a retrospective of O'Keeffe's
art at the National Museum of Art.
Fascinated by her images and her life with husband,
Alfred Stieglitz, famous photographer,
I began an imaginary biography of poems,
for her life exemplified the conflicts
many women endure in creating their art,
no matter what the genre.
Sample poem:
Ladder to the Moon
suspended
between a half moon
and the mountain's
cutoff peak
this ladder's
a dream catcher
some tree's fervent
wish to be climbed
my everest
leading to the roof
where twilight
flows through me
a river studded
with stars
moon fragment
reflecting
the lost sun
its twinned shadow
swimming
through the dark
once I cried
for the moon
fought years
for this house
the independence
i cherish more
than any man
no family
to shatter
the wholeness
of a well worked day
my latest
canvas drying
in the studio
a mirror
held up to life
but sometimes
this illusion fails
and stieglitz rises
forgotten planet
assailing my world
his absence
swelling like an old
grievance
familiar eclipse
swallowing my light
Review for A Woman Divided: Poems Inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe:
"Judy Longley is tuned to the twin poles of the beautiful and the difficult. She imaginatively recreates the spirit of Georgia O'Keeffe -- the spirit of her life and the spirit of her work. Longley is sensitive in her poems, the way O'Keeffe was in her paintings, to the influences of emotion and place. In words, she captures something very like O'Keeffe's own capture of the bleak, the spiritual and the enduring."
-- Susan Shafarzek
About the author:
Judy Longley has four books of poetry: My Journey Toward You, Parallel Lives, Rowing Past Eden and A Woman Divided; Poems Inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe. Her poems appeared in Paris Review, Poetry, Western Humanities Review, Southern Review and many other journals.
Poetry editor five years for Iris: A Journal for Women, published by the University of Virginia, she now edits for Tough Times Companion, published by the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.
ISBN: 978-1-4257-9763-8, 77 pages, $15.99
Xlibris, February, 2008
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