Bachelard and the Artist Interrupt Each Other

            outside & inside	 my lines, oily red
               			      are both 	scribbled
   			   intimate spaces 	matter of passion
   		           they are always	heat and downbeat
         		         ready to be	brushed away
               			     reversed	the hand tries
                      to exchange their	limned loops of  
       	   `		    	      hostility	bodies pained 
    			      if there exists	a refugee in
       		      	        a borderline 	shadowed shade
                                       surface 	caught in
    	                      between such	masked smiles
      	 	 	             an inside	of fury
          		         and outside	erased
       			         this surface 	this study
          			   is painful	birthing what
      			      on both sides	but hours spent

Author of the article

Charlotte Friedman is a poet, translator and teacher who grew up in the Pacific Northwest and now lives in New Jersey. Her nonfiction book, The Girl Pages, was published by Hyperion, and her poetry in journals such as Connecticut River Review, Intima, and Waterwheel Review, which nominated “Alams for Cleaning Out the Painter’s House” for a Pushcart Prize. Her translations of Ch’ol poetry (with Carol Rose Little) have been published in World Literature Today, The Arkansas International, and elsewhere. She taught at Barnard College for ten years, as well as in hospitals in New York and Israel. Read more of her work on her website.