#MIDDLEBURY
Chaim Soutine: The Errant Road, 1939
Cole Swensen
as if a road could be otherwise but geometry
defies the man who is lost on the road that
the trees want to reach and reach down
to his walking on
along a verticality that defies
the requirements of normative perspective
and so he will reach, and the trees against chalk –
the gesture of the arm extended is central
to all Soutine’s work be it a branch or an ache
or a split of the face, going off. In this case
can you say that a man is lost just because
you cannot distinguish him from the background.
About this poem
“This poem is from a series based on a decades-long fascination with the landscapes of the early 20th century painter Chaim Soutine. The critic Clarisse Nicoidski claimed that Soutine was the painter ‘who made the wind visible.’ This series tries to capture and continue Soutine’s synesthetic grasp of the world.” – Cole Swensen
About Cole Swensen
Cole Swensen is the author of “Landscapes on a Train” (Nightboat Books, 2015). She teaches at Brown University and divides her time between Providence, R.I., and Paris.
The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day@poets.org.
(c) 2016 Cole Swensen. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate.
