Poem-A-Day: The Problem of Hands by Louise Mathias

November 20, 2013 The Problem of Hands by Louise Mathias And how to fill them  is the problem of cigarettes and paint.    First time I felt my undoing  was in front of    a painting--Sam Francis, I believe.    Oh, his bloomed out, Xanax-ed California.    I liked the word guard, but you know    we made each other  nervous, standing too close    for everyone concerned. All art being    a form of violence  as a peony  is violence.    Here you come    with your open hands.     Copyright © 2013 by Louise Mathias. Used with permission of the author.   About This Poem "In museums, I often attract the guards' attention because I like to get very very close to paintings I love. I once fell in love with a man in the large white rooms of the Art Institute of Chicago, in large part due to the way his breathing changed when we stood too close. At its root, 'The Problem of Hands' is a poem about the brute power of desire--how it fills us--and its sister threat: that it can also cut us off at the knees."   --Louise Mathias Most Recent Book by Mathias The Traps (Four Way Books, 2013)            Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day Archive.   Louise Mathias's most recent book of poems is The Traps (Four Way Books, 2013). She lives in Joshua Tree, California, a small town in the Mojave desert.   Related Poems Driven by a Strange Desire by Mónica de la Torre At a Window by Carl Sandburg Consider the Hands that Write This Letter by Aracelis Girmay __________________________ Rae Armantrout is the judge for the 2014 Walt Whitman first book award. Submit your manuscript online. Deadline: December 1.     Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

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