This month sees the return of Artword, the festival celebrating the intimate relationship between visual art and poetry. Founded by beloved poet, activist and Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance co-founder Lee Sharkey, Artword invites Maine poets to write about works on exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art. This week, Deep Water joins in the celebration by featuring Leslie Moore’s “savannah blues,” a vivid and colorful evocation of a beloved Dahlov Ipcar work, which will also be made into a broadside for the event. Tune in on Tuesday and April 21 to hear other Artword poems read by their authors. For more information and the link to join, go to mainewriters.org/artword.
Moore is a printmaker and pen-and-ink artist. She has shown her work in solo and group shows up and down the coast of Maine and is currently represented by Local Color Gallery in Belfast and The Green Lion Gallery in Bath. She has illustrated four books, including “All My Dogs” by Bill Henderson, founder of Pushcart Press.
savannah blues
By Leslie Moore
<blockquote>after “Blue Savanna,” by Dahlov Ipcar</blockquote>
in a clamor of blue notes
over a patchworked grassland
criss-crossed with creatures
her counterpane cut and pieced in oils
spattered with oxblood and chlorophyll
midnight creeping from the margins
each patch quickens legs flash tails
curl ears swivel hearts drum
wildebeest careen over indigo veldts
zebras zig-zag sapphire shards
a lion snarls in shadow cheetahs spangle
guineas flock snakes spiral gazelles
arabesque a kudo startles on a path
servals speckle civets stripe
stitched together with grass and feathers
horn and hide flower stems and leaves
of baobab trees her canvas
splinters into chaos breaks into blue light
Megan Grumbling is a poet and writer who lives in Portland. Deep Water: Maine Poems is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. “savannah blues,” copyright © 2021 by Leslie Moore, appears by permission of the author.
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