Close Up with O’Keefe

How does a curvilinear,
abstract frill

wrap around a heart of patina,
fungus-like, an organic shell?

Observe how the primitive waves crash,
preserving the pulsing

pigment of Persian-red gouache;
how the artist’s blood

seeped into the underpainting.

Kim M. Russell, 6th May 2025

Georgia O’Keeffe, The Black Iris (1926), oil on canvas,
Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, gift of The Burnett Foundation

It’s Tuesday Poetics at the dVerse Poets Pub and our host is Melissa, with an ekphrastic prompt.

Melissa has chosen the American modernist artist, Georgia O’Keeffe, known for her paintings of flowers and landscapes, as inspiration for our poems.  O’Keefe used bold colours in her paintings, which “often depicted their subjects in a close-up style. Her work revolved heavily around nature, showcasing it in its simplicity and with all its idiosyncrasies”.

Melisa would like us to choose one of the paintings she has featured in this post and compose an ekphrastic poem, which must incorporate a handful of the terms in the grid she has provided. I’ve chosen: abstract, curvilinear, gouache, organic, patina, primitive and underpainting.

33 thoughts on “Close Up with O’Keefe”

    1. Thank you, Björn. I didn’t see the name of the painting, so I just wrote about what I saw. I had to check the prompt for the title of the painting and add it to my post.

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    1. Thank you, Melissa. As you’ve probably gathered, I didn’t see the title of the painting, I just looked at it and didn’t see the flower at first. That’s what I love about ekphrastic prompts: seeing different things and reading other interpretations.

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  12. “how the artist’s blood – seeped into the underpainting”

    You have truly melded your creativity with Georgia’s, Kim…

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  15. Pingback: Weekend poetry dump | paeansunpluggedblog

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