Author Archives: jillbpearlman

George and Francesca: The Magic Box

Posted on September 27, 2019 by jillbpearlman

In writing about his friend photographer Francesca Woodman, George Lange talks about a “magic box” that he kept after she died in 1981, a box of relics – not only photographs but clips of hair, napkins, contact sheets, scrawled notes, … Continue reading →

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Continuum

Posted on September 8, 2019 by jillbpearlman

“Some beetle trilling its midnight utterance.”   Beetle song opens Denise Levertov’s “Continuum,” a poem of late-summer return.  Returns can be precarious transitions…maybe you’re like me, having come back home with a certain euphoria, having recalibrated by quieting the melancholy news … Continue reading →

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Cut Me Loose

Posted on August 18, 2019 by jillbpearlman

How freeing to discover the curious way French acquaintances and friends are judging the US.  Fortunately Trump is not sucking out all the oxygen.  While they despise him, they’re perplexed by this passing nightmare and don’t hold it against us.  … Continue reading →

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Summer Bed

Posted on August 16, 2019 by jillbpearlman

The pine prepares a beddropping its needles long and thinas angel’s hair and smooth, each connectedto a partner, toasted like hay or ochreanticipating our autumnal bed though now we lay head to headwatching the summer stars

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Refugees: The Tragedy of Frenemies

Posted on August 7, 2019 by jillbpearlman

I saw a discrete sign for a Memorial to Internment Camps at Rivesaltes, outside Perpignan, France, and finally decided to visit.  Lacking indication, you’d have to know or have a reason to take the plunge. You’d have to choose right … Continue reading →

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Le Plus Ça Change…

Posted on August 2, 2019 by jillbpearlman

As the French take to the barricades to figure out what the country is about, one thing they don’t doubt is food. As Eric Delalande, a brilliant chef who traded Madison Avenue for Place des Marchés in Villèsque, a remote … Continue reading →

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Blank Space: Bastille Day

Posted on July 14, 2019 by jillbpearlman

What’s not to love? The first lines of the French chalkboard – “Today we celebrate” have been carefully written once. The last line shows traces of previous fêtes, erased and written over. Today’s humble last line, dashed off, ignoring a … Continue reading →

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Independence EveryDay

Posted on July 5, 2019 by jillbpearlman

Celebrations Morning wakes hours before its city creatures.I see light through the shutters:cool insides while their clapboards communicate color — hydrangea pink, hydrangea blue —to the morning.  Slate gray street, a herribone brick sidewalk.  Couples inside, coffee darker than their peignoirs.  It’s a holiday.The … Continue reading →

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The Poet who mistook a Sunflower for Eve

Posted on June 1, 2019 by jillbpearlman

As the poet must give up control of meaning to the reader, so the abstract painter must let go – rejoice! – in happy (mis)interpretations of her viewers.   After seeing Joan Mitchell’s large canvases (seen here in detail), I … Continue reading →

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Genesis, Moonstone Beach

Posted on May 30, 2019 by jillbpearlman

Thanks, Crosswinds Poetry Journal, for publishing this poem in Volume IV !

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