Friday Poem – ‘The Artist Mixes Colour in the Renaissance’ by Rosalind Hudis

~ Seren Books

This week’s Friday Poem is ‘The Artist Mixes Colour in the Renaissance’ by Rosalind Hudis from her collection Restorations.

This cover shows an abstract print of blue and red mountains blocking out the sky. The text reads: Restorations: Roaalind Hudis. "If a poem is like a picture, these are history paintings, rich in human detail and many-layered in their brushwork." – Matthew Francais

Inspired by the art restorer’s keen eye and by a vivid empathy for people and events, Restorations, is a journey through memory. Suffused with colour, inspired by thoughts of people and places, by artefacts and how the passage of time shifts perspectives and erodes surfaces, these poems are beautifully complex explorations, full of curiosity and the adventure of seeing and listening.

The Artist Mixes Colour in the Renaissance Don’t think of me as lime-robed and lost in undailiness; I come with sleeves rolled-up, worker in a mire of substance. Yes, I stink! I chew on a rotted wafer of dried fish glue my saliva in the mix. How else to stretch the hue of some frosty cleric? My paints are part kill: rabbit skin, horse hoof, pig’s blood. I knife, mine, grind, churn, pound, steep, sweat my way to that primal blue you worship. When you varnish me with meaning, remember the grit under my nails, the fumes. Green comes from the labour camps you made for your longing. And that hair-coiled girl resolved from light. She’s no touched-up pink fix. She took on the earth to coagulate: egg-yolk, red clay, mineral, old linen marble dust. Do you think, if she looked up she wouldn’t roar with the energy of her roots?

Restorations is available on the Seren website: £9.99

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