Readers,
If I’m not mistaken we’ve yet to run a poem by Kay Ryan, the relatively newly-appointed Poetry Consultant to the Library of Congress, aka “Poet Laureate.” Prior to winning a major poetry award in 2004, Ms. Ryan was little-known. I’m not going to say much about this piece but do wish an art history expert (or even someone who remembers an undergrad class) would peep up about what the heck she’s talking about with this vanitas business. -ed.
DEATH BY FRUIT
Only the crudest
of the vanitas set
ever thought you had to get
a skull into the picture
whether you needed
its tallowy color
near the grapes or not.
Others, stopping to consider
shapes and textures,
often discovered that
eggs or aubergines
went better, or leeks,
or a plate of string beans.
A skull is so dominant.
It takes so much
bunched up drapery,
such a ponderous
display of ornate cutlery,
just to make it less prominent.
The greatest masters
preferred the subtlest vanitas,
modestly trusting to fruit baskets
to whisper ashes to ashes,
relying on the poignant exactness
of oranges to release
like a citrus mist
the always fresh fact
of how hard we resist
how briefly we’re pleased.
-2000
