Pain

 

Frida Kahlo knew more about pain than almost any artist I can think of. No surprise then that her paintings need go no further than herself, indeed often no further than her face to represent pain. She learned to live with physical pain, she had no choice: she and pain were one. In her painting ’the broken column’, the column depicts unbearable pain, but is also the backbone of her body.

Frequently, the strength of her imagery comes from her maintaining an austere but otherwise quite inscrutable expression, she lets the symbolism supplied by the various animals or plants that frame her head carry the message. It is understatement that carries the weight in these works.

I mention it because in poetry, time and time again, (even among many poets who are highly lauded), the  urge to spew high-flown verbiage, strangling their poems at birth, leaves me, for one, longing for a good ole football match.