NaPoWriMo: ...now for our daily optional prompt. The surrealist painters Remedios Varo and Leonora Carrington moved to Mexico during the height of World War II, where they began a life-long friendship. Today, we’d like to challenge you to write a poem themed around friendship, with imagery or other ideas taken from a painting by Carrington, and a painting by Varo.
Day Seventeen-NaPoWriMo-Alchemy of the Two
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| Leonora Carrington-The-Lovers / Remedios Varo-The-Lovers (same title, different versions) |
In a blue-walled casa, the air looms dense
Two sisters stir their tea with magic spells.
One with a wild robe, a defiant visionary
The other, a quiet soul, hid in the imaginary.
They swing in the air with their fingers laced
Like Varo’s Lovers, they mirror their face.
Both tread under the inky-liquid sky
They trade secret spells in a moonlit vase.
The kettle speaks of a one-legged wolf
Blue-Red lovers lie around thick-robed forms.
Carrington dreams of a glowing tent
Varo threads through the cosmic fold.
Not muses, never! — not someone’s mirror—
But cartographers of the unseen.
Friendship, they learned, is a spell well-spun
two minds, two moons, orbiting one sun.
Carrington and Varo are both my favourites (I do have a lot of favourites, though). I am in awe of the surrealists, the way they blend dreams with reality in unexpected ways. It is like a liminal space - irrational, strange, symbolic, challenging logic and convention. It is like perceiving someone else's dream and getting drawn into their mystery. What makes them so interesting is how they turn the bizarre into beauty, inviting you to see the world differently.
I had in mind the artworks titled The Lovers by both artists.
4 comments:
I love the way you set the scene in the opening stanza, Deepa, and the phrases ‘hid in the imaginary’, ‘trade secret spells in a moonlit vase’ and ‘friendship…is a spell well-spun’.
I really enjoyed your poem — the idea of drawing inspiration from two such contrasting paintings with the same title is brilliant. You've created a lyrical dialogue between them that’s both imaginative and thought-provoking. A special kind of alchemy indeed.
This is welcome feedback, Kim! Thanks for highlighting what you liked the most.
Love how you express it! It’s incredibly encouraging to hear that the piece resonated in the way I hoped it might. Truly grateful for your thoughtful reading.
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