This week’s poem is ekphrastic, meaning it is inspired by and based on a work of art. In this case, it’s a piece by artist and scholar David Driskell that is in the collection at the Portland Museum of Art. Like any good ekphrastic poem, this one can be read without having seen the piece, but seeing it will expand the power of the poem.
This poem was also part of a program called Artword put together by the poet Lee Sharkey, the PMA and the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance for the last few years. This year’s Artword is open for submissions through January 15, so if you think you’d like to write a poem about a piece of art, visit mainewriters.org for more details.
Jeri Theriault’s full-length collection “Radost, my red” was released in 2016 by Moon Pie Press. Her long teaching career included six years as the English department chair at the International School of Prague.
earth dance
By Jeri Theriault
after “Procession II” by David Driskell
from blister
& joy
from mud cloth
& grandmother’s
dance-in-the-circle
quilt
we
watch skies
unwind
from pot shard
to clay
crop & toil
someone’s working
lord this land
in red pleats
taking
& giving
someone’s singing
lord feet slapping
the rescued
ground
juba & joy
jambon & jubilee
ashanti in head scarves
acadians in flannel
we move
through fields
the earth turned
but never quite
empty
Gibson Fay-LeBlanc is poet who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2017 Jeri Theriault. It appears here by permission of the author. For an archive of all the poems that have appeared in this column, go to www.pressherald.com/tag/deep-water.
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