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      March 27, 2020Mother and ChildBarbara Lydecker Crane

      “Mother and Child (Nancy and Olivia),” a painting by Alice Neel, New York City, 1967

      Portrait painting, so long out of fashion,
      was all I did. Not by commission—I’d ask
      a friend whose face was lined by life and passion
      to sit. Then I’d distort a bit: a mask
      would simplify and heighten their emotion.
      This Harlem neighbor’s eyes are spelling fear
      as she holds her baby tightly with devotion
      and protection from who could appear
      through that open door. I told my story,
      how my husband stole our second daughter
      and fled the country. I told my friend the gory
      gist of losing our firstborn. I caught her
      terror as she sat, and watched it spread
      into her baby’s eyes, as fixed as dead.

      from #66 - Winter 2019

      Barbara Lydecker Crane

      “This year I’ve been immersed in writing ekphrastic sonnets about well-known paintings in the imagined voices of their makers. I’ve learned a lot about artists, their works and their personal struggles and determination. During the abstract expressionist era, Alice Neel quietly persevered in her own unpopular style of social realism; she finally gained some recognition late in her life. All the information about her in this poem is accurate, but I do not know how much she confided of her own traumatic life to this young mother. I can almost hear Neel telling her story, though, as I look at the mother’s expression of alarm and her protective hold of her baby.”

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