Lady with a Parrot

Her life is mirrored in the bird:
grey with a touch of crimson
in the parrot’s crest and feather tips,
and her unsmiling lips.

Red’s lucky for some,
but she is a captive,
tamed and longing to fly
beyond blue curtains to sky

and leaves, green as the bowl,
from which she sips her tea,
and green as her envy
of the parrot’s wings.

Kim M. Russell, 15th October 2024

Le Pho (1907-2001), Femme au perroquet (Lady with A Parrot) (1938), ink and gouache on silk

For this week’s Poetics at the dVerse Poets Pub, Melissa is our host, and we are celebrating the art of Le Pho, a Vietnamese artist born in 1907, which she discovered at Sunnyside’s blog.

Melissa gives us a background to Le Pho, and a selection of his paintings. She says: “I think what initially drew me to his art was the composition and technique he used in creating subtle detail. Many of his works possess a certain surrealistic quality. There is much to be explored.”

Our challenge is to select one of the artworks she has chosen (from Sunnyside’s blog), and write a poem that blends ekphrasis and theme (women, flowers, landscapes or family).

32 thoughts on “Lady with a Parrot”

  2. I find the thought of her life mirrored in the bird fascinating, Kim. And I love these lines and the way they’re written, specifically the space and then the ‘leaves’:

    “tamed and longing to fly
    beyond blue curtains to sky

    and leaves..”

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  3. I really don’t know how you can do that — bring a picture alive in verse like that. Is not the first I have seen you do that, and tonight I tried hard but really just cannot, without making it sound like a guide. So very beautifully done again Kim.

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  8. Perhaps all pets are in some way objects onto which we project things about ourselves, whilst they all unwittingly live out their contained lives, Kim, very well done…

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