Dear Christina,
I really enjoyed this. The only problem I have is with the last stanza.
You're dealing with quite a long and complicated time-line here. but I
think you've got well it under control until right at the end.
As I'm reading it, in the final stanza, the narrator is feeling herself
back in the studio- but that 'long time dead' doesn't seem to belong
there -it's a commentary from the present, and as such, it feels a bit
intrusive - a sort of reminder of artifice - to me at that point.
However, it does round the poem off well, and it's that sort of give and
take that poetry often involves, and you may well have made the right
decision about it.
Kind regards,
grasshopper
----- Original Message -----
From: Christina Fletcher
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 5:04 PM
Subject: [THE-WORKS] New sub: Life Model
Life Model
Here, in Tate Modern, most look quickly and move on
with no idea of how the slightest movement
changes everything, how light shifts, or the scent
of paraffin and nicotine on her skin.
Step back thirty years - she's swallowing
amphetamines to keep so still that she'll slip
from her body and look down to watch him
watching her, mixing his oils through marriage,
separation, divorce - the same canvas,
the same godawful silence. And for what?
A Times obituary? Now, she's in that space again:
his chair, those walls, the line of his plumb.
Everything's familiar: she's a poor schmuck
of a student, easy to impress, paid peanuts.
Obsessed with what he sees, he's on the up:
unknown, known, famous. A long time dead.
christina fletcher
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