Amaud Jamaul Johnson: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

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Spirit of the Dead Watching

"Men are apt to idolize or fear that which they cannot understand, especially if it be a woman.”

                                                            —Jean Toomer

Like so many stones, a handful

of jasper or black opal scattered

along the banks of the Papenoo,

 

Gauguin has fixed his eye upon

a native girl working among the women.

She twists and beats the wash dry

 

for her mother, readying the bundles

to be carried back to their village,

and Gauguin is in love again.

 

Long from those indifferent hours,

long from the doors of the Maison du jouir

and the affected gaze of his mistresses.

 

In this paradise, all of his desires

collapse into color, become baskets

of guava, plantain, and avocado.

 

Tonight, he will offer her chocolate

and hold a red silk scarf before the fire.

Beneath banyan, palm, and sweet gum,

 

he will try to divine the body’s secret,

unburden himself of the thought of history

and paint his language into their silences.

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Born and raised in Compton, California, Amaud Jamaul Johnson is the author of three poetry collections, Imperial Liquor (Pitt Poetry Series 2020), a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award;  Darktown Follies (Tupelo Press 2013), winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award; and Red Summer (Tupelo Press 2006), winner of the Dorset Prize.

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Paul Gauguin, Spirit of the Dead Watching, 1892, oil on burlap mounted on canvas, 116.05 x 134.62 x 13.34 cm (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY).

Comments

[Bill Nevins]

Brilliant word painting and thought. Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

The silent trees know. Lovely poem.

[Grace Cavalieri]

The sweetness of sensuality, beautifully said.

[Barbara Henning]

deep poem. interesting pairing of Toomer and Gauguin

[Eileen Reich]

Beautiful and colorful in every way

[Don Berger]

What beautiful closing four lines, plus I really like Johnson's ear for the line, and the combination of his describing both the picture and the painter's thought.

[Grace Cavalieri]

What a terrific job, you're doing Terence. The poetry selection and art curation. It is beyond anything else presented online.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks so much for the comment, Grace. You made my day.

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

Describing or distilling the visual impact of any great painter in words can be a monumental, even insuperable challenge, yet Amaud Jamaul Johnson does so with elastic elan and arresting vividness. His poem's deft accretion of colors, contours, and textures through a breathtaking evocation of jasper, black opal, guava, plantain, avocado, chocolate, red silk scarf, banyan, palm, and sweet gum excites the senses without swamping them. As Johnson notes, "Gauguin is in love again." So are we. Through Johnson's words we "see" what is before Gauguin: a delicate dipping into and out of "the body's secret ... the thought of history" and his attempt to "paint his language into their silences." The heady synesthesia conjured by Johnson is a perfect match to his subject. The mirror he holds up to Gauguin is not just a reflection but a reimmersion into the power of paint to escape its two dimensions, just as the power of this poem does. What a triumph!

[KC Trommer]

Love this poem, particularly the wryness of "Gauguin is in love again" and the knowing in "all of his desires/ collapse into color"--gazing at the gazer and seeing him for who he is.