Matisse: The Poetics of Vision- Four Poems by Lily Iona MacKenzie

Yellow Pottery From Provence, by Henri Matisse (France) 1905

Yellow Pottery from Provence
 
It isn’t the earthenware jug 
the shade of overcooked
ochre outlined in purple
 
Nor is it the bold colors—background columns
of hunter green, cerulean blue, alizarin shading 
to rust, burnt sienna, black, and baby blush 
pink—none
fitting colour harmony but acquiring
their own 
 
It’s the empty spaces devoid 
of paint where our eyes briefly rest 
and then get drawn
in     The unfinished parts
of the painting hold us
in thrall

Blue Nude, by Henri Matisse (France) 1907

​Blue Nude
 
Could she be Matisse’s response to Picasso
and his blue period, his attempt to resurrect
the female, maybe in protest 
of Picasso’s cubes, but still failing 
to set her free
 
She overpowers the canvas, bruised blue
highlighting her curves, outlining her form,
the painter appearing to preempt 
her loss, the pale pink flesh
an afterthought
 
Caught in this pose, the nude resembles
a statue, not a live woman but
a relic, her raised left arm a stranger
to the rest of her 
 
And the expression on her face as she stares
somewhere outside
the picture plane is not
Mona Lisa’s enigmatic
smile
 
The self she has taken
for granted is not her self
at all but
 
some angular arrangement more male
than female in competition 
with the background’s hotter 
colors that call
attention to the cooler shades
of her skin and her large feet
almost extending off the edge
of the frame

The Pewter Jug, by Henri Matisse (France) 1917

The Pewter Jug
 
The pewter jug isn’t the focus
of this still life
 
Swirls of grey tinged with ochre spin 
the viewer’s eye upward and into 
the soft pastel
 
wine-shaded fabric that threatens
to take over the scene
 
The staid circular serving dish holds 
a glass of water and two
pieces of fruit whose colour
 
the jug steals to embellish
its exterior
 
Gaping black creases 
in the enveloping fabric 
are echoed by the black strip 
on the painting’s left
 
an abyss
none of these objects
seems aware of

Still Life, Bouquet of Dahlias and White Book, by Henri Matisse (France) 1923

Bouquet of Dahlias and White Book
 
I stumble on the words ‘still life’
that describe this painting. Nothing
 
about it is still. The dahlias 
anchoring the painting swoon 
 
in the vase too small
to hold their abundant   
 
blossoms. Pink blooms
and green leaves swirl 
 
on the background 
wall and the chair behind the table teeters
 
as if caught 
in motion.
 
The pewter plate with 
two pieces of fruit and 
 
a half-full glass float 
atop the surface, next 
 
to the white book also
in flight. On the right, perching 
 
on the table’s edge
leans one quarter 
 
of a blue and white vase 
attempting to stay 
within the frame.

Lily Iona MacKenzie

Lily Iona MacKenzie: "A Canadian by birth, a high school dropout, and a mother at 17, in my early years, I supported myself as a stock girl in the Hudson’s Bay Company, as a long-distance operator for the former Alberta Government Telephones, and as a secretary (Bechtel Corp sponsored me into the States). I also was a cocktail waitress at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, briefly broke into the male-dominated world of the docks as a longshoreman (I was the first woman to work on the SF docks and almost got my legs broken), founded and managed a homeless shelter in Marin County, and eventually earned two Master’s degrees (one in Creative writing and one in the Humanities). I have published reviews, interviews, short fiction, poetry, travel pieces, essays, and memoir in over 165 American and Canadian venues. My novel Fling! was published in July 2015 by Pen-L Publishing. Curva Peligrosa, another novel, was released in 2017. My poetry collection All This was published in 2011. No More Kings, a poetry chapbook, came out on March 26, 2020. Currently, I’m teaching creative writing at USF’s Fromm Institute of Lifelong Learning. I also blog about reading and writing at https://lilyionamackenzie.com."