Associate Editor Madeleine Wattenberg: In this excerpt from Her Read: A Graphic Poem, forthcoming from Texas Review Press, Jennifer Sperry Steinorth reminds us that the purpose of erasure poetry isn’t to erase, but the opposite—it is to reveal what has already been obscured. Steinorth transforms Herbert Read’s The Meaning of Art (Faber & Faber, 1931) into Her Read, a way of reading for the “hers” elided by the gaze of the male critic and artist. This section, titled “Master’s Mirror,” demonstrates how the history of art is just as often a reflection of the “master” as it is of any truth. Additionally striking is Steinorth’s selection of materials for her erasures; her use of embroidery thread, for example, collapses the separate spheres of gendered art-making by combining the materials associated with them.
We’re excited to present these poems as a rare online feature in order to provide access to both the images and text.
Master’s Mirror
an excerpt from Her Read, a graphic poem
I read to Congress with my flesh
marked by his submission
Read admits he needs aspirin
The Virgin weary of valour
and chivalry attends
ooooooooo Virgin
with the lust of angels and curs,
at Beloved’s behest
I played thee
MASTERS SAY PAIN IS DOMINATED BY THE WHIP
OF LONGING MASTERS SAY PAIN IS THE DOMINION
OF ECSTASY MASTERS SAY PAIN IS A DOMINATRIX IS
ITALIAN SAY LOVE IN ITALICS APPLY HOT WAX
SWEET BOY THIS IS A PROCESS CAN ONLY BE DE-
SCRIBED AS ‘LOVING CARE’ COMES LOWLINESS
COMES SURPRISE COMES IN A HOOD IN A VAN IN A COT
ACT NATURAL FROND OF FERN PETAL OF FLOWER
LOWLY THE HIGHEST EXPRESSION OF SAINTHOOD
SWEET HOOD SWEET HEAD TUMBLING OUT A VAN
A COT MY MOUTH LET’S ALL POSE FOR SAINT
FRANCIS THE LANDSCAPE EXPECTS TO CONSORT
WITH ECSTASY PULL BACK YOUR HOOD PULL BACK
MY HEAD THE DEAD IS NO ACTUAL PERSON CRIES
MASTER MASTER READ ME TOP TO BOTTOM
MASTER MASTER READ ME UNDER THE COVERS
MASTER ME OVER THE OTHERS BOTTOM TO TOP
BOTTOMS UP LET’S ALL DRINK THE VIRGIN
MASTER SWEET MASTER PIECE ME LET ME
DRINK YOU UNDER THE TABLE SPREAD LIKE
BUTTER WEAR MY THIGH THERE BUT FOR A WHITE
UNMARKED VAN GO I BUT FOR THE GRACE
OF A WAX WORKDS SAINT O O YOU FOUND MY STIGMATA
MISTER I AM NOT YOUR MASTER PIECE DARLING
YOU’RE MY VERY BEST VIRGIN DON’T YOU KNOW
IF PAIN BE REAL THE BEST VIRGINS ARE
THE ONES WHO PLAY PRETEND
masters might be mad at me
what I did
in a Van
to St. Francis
an ordinary wounded person
The master is but a piece
—The Virgin Virgin
between the Virgin and Me
Flesh can only be discovered by ship
I scarcely fret
the waves at the foot
of our fantastic fur bed
Artist Statement:
This sequence is an excerpt from Her Read: A Graphic Poem, forthcoming from Texas Review Press in spring of 2021. The text is a facsimile of an artifact: the radical remodel of The Meaning of Art (Faber & Faber, 1931) by British cultural critic Herbert Read. Though the maternal body appears with frequency in this scholarship that explores art from prehistory through the modern era, zero womxn artists are named until the third edition in 1951, and then, but one—Barbara Hepworth.
I began this makeover the summer of 2016, in that pre-election heat, finding myself otherwise unable to write. From the voice of the male critic surveying male bodies of work, I began excavating a first-person female lyric, the imagined voices of unsung womxn artists and those framed in gilt.
Materials: source text, correction fluid, inks, florist tissue, window shades, vellum, embroidery floss.
Jennifer Sperry Steinorth‘s books include A Wake with Nine Shades (Texas Review Press, 2019) and Her Read: A Graphic Poem (TRP, 2021). She has received grants from Vermont Studio Center, the Sewanee Writers Conference, and Community of Writers, and her poetry appears in Beloit Poetry Journal, Black Warrior Review, The Missouri Review, New Ohio Review, Poetry Northwest, Quarterly West, Rhino, and elsewhere.
