The Lithograph Artist and Van Gogh – A Poem

This poem began as a very simple response only to Marsden Hartley’s fruit bowl, and then, somehow, grew into a sparring match with Vincent van Gogh. Who won?

The Lithograph Artist and Van Gogh

(i)
I draw my images directly on stone.
The nature of my art favours mono-tone.
Then like magic, I print more than one.

I don’t want to hear you preach.
How your coloured fruit has spiritual reach.
Can’t live on fruit that costs a dollar each.

You say your purpose is poetic flame.
I say printing will make your purpose lame.
My graphic fruit have imperialist aim.

(ii)

My coloured swirls make you irate?
Art is not about how art rates,
Against what gallery attendees last ate.

There is bread in my mounds of wheat.
There are seeds in my sunflowers in heat.
There is life in my still lifes you can reach out and eat.

My chalked peasant woman doesn’t just spit
As she leans and digs her potato pit.
She asks me to colour her life. She yearns for it.

©elsp 2025

More of my ekphrastic poetry here. An explanation of ekphrastic poetry here. More on diminishing verse here.