The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead

Georgia O'Keeffe, by Laurel S. Peterson

9/12/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
Georgia O'Keeffe, photography by Alfred Stieglizt (USA). 1918.
Georgia O'Keeffe
         
It’s been a hundred years since those iconic hands
pulled her collar around her chin,
dark eyes staring away from Stieglitz.
 
When Charlene was twenty-five, she bought
a book of O’Keeffe’s letters,
read them on the flight home from LA,
hoping to learn how to be a woman.
 
O’Keeffe might have been the same age then
Charlene is now, but Charlene works
in marketing, corporate hands on her butt.
And when her married boss wants to take her
for martinis, she knows she still has to pay rent,
the head of HR is his friend, and even a trailer
in Abiqui is sixty grand.
 
Sometimes, Charlene wonders where
the new Abiqui might be:
Honduras? one of the Stans--
Uzbekistan? Turkmenistan?
She bets she could get a stone hut for cheap,
walk the sheep-studded hillsides in search of poems.
 
But she’s got no Stieglitz, back in New York,
championing her. She’d end up
writing poems in the cold, dark
eyes staring across the empty steppe,
hands frostbite-white against the black
wool blanket she pulls close
around her throat. 

Laurel S. Peterson
​
Laurel S. Peterson is an English professor at Norwalk Community College and her poetry has been published in many literary journals. She has two poetry chapbooks, That’s the Way the Music Sounds (Finishing Line Press) and Talking to the Mirror (Last Automat Press). and a full length collection, Do You Expect Your Art to Answer? (Futurecycle Press). She has also written a mystery novel, Shadow Notes. She currently serves as the town of Norwalk, Connecticut’s poet laureate. 
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    The Ekphrastic Review
    Picture
    Current Prompt
    COOKIES/PRIVACY
    This site uses cookies to deliver your best navigation experience this time and next. Continuing here means you consent to cookies. Thank you.
    Join us on Facebook:
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture



    ​
    ​Archives
    ​

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Lorette C. Luzajic theekphrasticreview@gmail.com 

  • The Ekphrastic Review
  • The Ekphrastic Challenges
    • Challenge Archives
  • Ebooks
  • Prizes
  • Book Shelf
    • Ekphrastic Book Shelf
    • Contributors' Book Shelf
    • TERcets Podcast
  • Workshops
  • Give
  • Submit
  • Contact
  • About/Masthead