Picasso Posse blogger Jen Anolik is an English major at Dickinson College who put her research skills to work and turned up some beautiful and strange poetry that Picasso wrote in his day. She shares a few stanzas with us.
Picasso’s interest in poetry is not entirely surprising considering that he hung out with poets in Paris, such as Cocteau, Breton, and Apollinaire. Picasso’s prose has often been compared to his artwork- in particular, his collages. The most obvious similarity is that, like his works of art, the meaning of Picasso’s poetry is difficult to interpret at first glance.
Here is an excerpt from a poem he wrote in 1939:
the coal folds the sheets embroidered with the wax of eagles
falling in a shower of laughs the icy tangle of
the flames from the empty sky on the ripped skin of the house
in a corner at the bottom of the drawer of the wardrobe vomits its wings
clacking at the window forgotten on the emptiness
the ripped black sheet of icy honey
of the flames of the sky
on the torn skin at the house
in a corner at the bottom of the drawer
the eagle vomits its wings
Picasso also had a habit of juxtaposing unlikely words in his poetry in the same way as he pasted unrelated materials together to create his collages. Take “wax of eagles,” or “icy honey,” for example. Both are uncanny images formed by words that normally don’t appear next to one another. But when placed side by side, the individual meanings of these words combine and create a fresh image or concept within the poem.
Want to read more of Picasso’s poetry? Check out the book, Burial of the Count of Orgaz & Other Poems.
