Poems and Images from the Benton anthology (Ben Shahn, Father & Child (1947)

Father and Child: Ben Shahn

Times change:
no longer the virgin
ample-lapped; the child fallen
in it from an adjacent heaven.

Heaven is far off, back
of the bombed town. The infant
is human, embraced dearly
like a human mistake.

The father presses, his face set,
towards a displaced future.
The mother has salvaged her mother's
portrait and carries it upside down.

R. S. Thomas

Poems and Images from the Benton anthology: Pierre Bonnard, The Bowl of Milk (1919)

The Bowl of Milk

In a moment the little black cat will be gone,
Th bowl of milk set down somewhere
Outside the picture-space. Alone
Upstairs, Marthe will undress, prepare
Th ritual water, soap herself, and lie
Becoming innocent. The cat will drop
Asleep in the sun, the milk bowl dry.
Bonnard will paint sunlight on th table top.

John Loveday

Poems and Images from the Benton anthology: Gwen John, Young Woman Holding A Black Cat (1914-5)

Gwen John's Cat

I may never have anything to express except this desire for a more interior life.
(GWEN JOHN)
If you are a woman, try hard not to write about Gwen John. (ROSEMARY HILL)

Edgar Quinet (named after the boulevard
in Montparnasse) must have got fed up of
posing in so many glum girls' laps.
Dressed in slate-blues, greys or mauves,
they all fade into walls as if they had no choice.
Such a gloom of sitters came and sat and went
(woman in a necklace; woman with a jug, a book;
young woman holding black cat; herself).
I like to think that Edgar Quinet bristled,
scratched, brushed past and exited -
maybe came back with a nature morte
(a bird, a mouse, a dead leaf at least)
to liven up the canvases a bit.
If so, his gifts were fruitless.
Drawn into interiors as if to represent
the artist's lot (and she forever waltzing out
into the whirl of Montparnasse by night)
he looks as if he never could have settled
either this side of the door or that,
his eyes forever focused on an exit back.

Sylvia Kantaris

Poems & Images from the Benton anthology: Max Ernst, The Blessed Virgin Chastises the Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses (1926)

The Virgin Punishing the Infant

He spoke early. Not the goo goo goo of infancy,
but I am God. Joseph kept away, carving himself
a silent Pinocchio out in the workshed. He said
he was a simple man and hadn't dreamed of this.

She grew anxious in that second year, would stare
at stars saying Gabriel, Gabriel. Your guess.
The village gossiped in the sun. The child was solitary,
his wide and solemn eyes could fill your head.

After he walked, our normal children crawled. Our wives
were first resentful, then superior. Mary's child
would bring her sorrow ... better far to have a son
who gurgled nonsense at your breast. Googoo. Googoo.

But I am God. We heard him through the window,
heard the smacks which made us peep. What we saw
was commonplace enough. But afterwards, we wondered
why the infant did not cry, why the Mother did.

Carol Ann Duffy

Last Updated 31 January 2008