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5 Feb 2023

Amaleena
Damlé

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Full Moon

Feb 20th

Jan 21st

The Water-lily’s Eye

After Claude Monet’s

The Japanese Footbridge

(1899 / c.1923-25)

                            a bridge sweeps across the landscape

                            from perception to sensation

                            daubed in washes and hues

                            the ocular translation of a world

                            light snatching at colour’s refraction

                            iridescence of iris to cataract’s crimson

                            a blurred reflection of blood and bile

                            in a canvas splattered with vision’s inconstancy

                            a blurred reflection of blood and bile

                            iridescence of iris to cataract’s crimson

                            light snatching at colour’s refraction

                            the ocular translation of a world

                            daubed in washes and hues

                            from perception to sensation

                            a bridge sweeps across the landscape

Behind the poem...

Claude Monet’s garden at Giverny provided an endless source of fascination for the artist, and featured in many of his paintings. My poem is inspired by two of Monet’s interpretations of The Japanese Footbridge: the first painted in his characteristic hues; the second, a representation of the same setting in a strikingly different palette and style – most likely painted when Monet was suffering from worsening cataracts. In the poem, I respond to the different forms of reflections in these two paintings: from the colour and light so much a part of Monet’s style during his early impressionistic period, to the reflections and refractions of the eye itself as it undergoes its own transformations.

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