New anthology, in South Korean

Hi everyone,

The book I’ve been waiting to see arrived on Friday. It’s a 387-page collection of poems and artwork reminiscent of JAN GREENBERG’S book, Heart to Heart, in which my poem in this South Korean book originally appeared.

This new book is all in South Korean, including the names of the poets and artists, so unless I recognize someone by his or her picture, or pick out their names in the credits, I’m stuck. I do recognize a few, though, enough to appreciate that I’m in good company, and I can read the poems, which are in English on the left side of the spread and South Korean on the right. Forgive the hurried pictures. The book is tightly bound and hard to keep open with one hand and shoot with the other.

Marilyn in Korean

Hi everyone,

This morning I granted permission to an author in South Korea to reprint “It’s Me!”, my poem about MARILYN MONROE, that was inspired by an ANDY WARHOL painting of Marilyn. The title of the book is, Ekphrasis: Poets Before the Artworks. The author describes his work as “an anthology of 40 ekphrastic poems(both in English and Korean), with photos/pictures of the authors and artists, of the related artworks, and with brief analytical explanations for each poem. It will be published in Korea by the end of 2023.” The publisher is located in Seoul.

The poem was originally published in Heart to Heart to Heart: New Poems Inspired by Twentieth-Century Art, edited by Jan Greenberg and published by Abrams in 2001.

Later it appeared in Arts and Artists, edited by Emily Fragos and published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2012. I look forward to seeing this latest curtain call for Marilyn — even though I had to ask the author to translate what he had to say about Andy Warhol’s diptych rendering of the famous star and my poem about her as I looked at his picture.

Andy, Marilyn, and Me

Hi everyone,

I read recently that an ANDY WARHOL painting of MARILYN MONROE, “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,” is slated to go up for auction this May and fetch around $200 million. That brought back memories in a hurry.

JAN GREENBURG published an art/poetry book in 2001. It was a collection of poems and the famous paintings they inspired. I wrote a poem for it based on an Andy Warhol diptych called Cow Wallpaper. I reasoned that only one of the cows in the picture was the original model so therefore all the others were fakes. I called the poem “It’s Me.”

At the last minute Jan learned that she couldn’t obtain rights to that painting, but she could get them for a Marilyn Monroe diptych so she asked me if that might work with my poem. I liked my adaptation better than the original. Monroe was often described as a woman who could be conflicted, maybe not always certain about who she was or had become. My poem fit her on a different level than it did the cows.

The poem was published in HEART TO HEART and drew some attention. The book itself won a lot of accolades. It’s a beautiful anthology.

Later my poem was picked up and reprinted in a book called ART AND ARTISTS POEMS, published by Alfred A. Knopf and filled with work by poets past and present worldwide.

The reason the upcoming auction of Marilyn caught my attention is that this painting of her was one of the ones in the diptych I used for my cow-to-Marilyn poem in 2001.