Transforming Pain into Poetry: Guest Post by Jessica Goody, Author of Phoenix: Transformation Poems

My guest today is poet Jessica Goody, whose latest collection is Phoenix: Transformation Poems. Jessica is kindly sharing a poem from the collection: “Jazz.” Please give her a warm welcome!

Transforming Pain into Poetry

Because I tend to think in images, a lot of my poetry is ekphrastic–inspired by artwork.

I am endlessly inspired by the lives and exploits of artists, like the Beats, the Harlem Renaissance, and the Bloomsbury Group. My poetry collection Phoenix: Transformation Poems features numerous odes to artists of every stripe–writers, actors, painters and musicians.

The opening poem, “Jazz,” is about Henri Matisse. Confined to a wheelchair following major surgery, he could no longer climb ladders to paint murals, so he covered the walls of his studio with butcher paper and drew with extra-long pencils. When arthritis left him unable to continue sculpting, he switched to collage, cutting shapes out of colored paper and arranging them in patterns to create Jazz, a book of decoupage art.

I believe that well-chosen words are the greatest agents of change; they provide hope to the suffering and clarity to the misguided. Phoenix offers glimpses of meaningful lives and explores what it means to be fully human. These poems cover a wide variety of subject matter, including beauty, creativity, and courage, but the main theme is transformation–the triumph over pain and trauma and the resilience of the human spirit.

Jazz

Patterns catch the eye, crawling along wallpaper

and upholstery in a melange of colors and textures,

rendering the room as exotic as a harem, draped with

vivid slipcovers of Moroccan arabesques and damasks.

 

The wallpaper blooms humid tropical foliage,

blood-red blossoms unfurling behind the heads

of odalisques reclining on striped pillows, the divan

curving beneath them like the body of a lover.

 

A backdrop of vibrant fabrics curtain the room like a seraglio.

Oushaks and kilims burn underfoot as the light shines

through the lacework windows and shuttered doors,

where beaded lamps drip crystals atop runner-draped tables.

 

Orchids and potted plants crowd every surface, swarming

the carved mantel and bowlegged iron tables. Lovingly arranged

into precisely disheveled still-lifes, the palm fronds spread their graceful

green arms to the sun, tendrils inching upward like ivy.

 

Joyful nudes dance along the walls. Cobalt blue outlines

like police silhouettes stretch and tumble, leap and caper.

Tinted ultramarine, the color of distant horizons,

they resemble woad-stained Celts, rangy of limb and sinew.

 

Matisse lies abed in his atelier, industrious as Proust,

surrounded by a sea of colored paper, scattered leaves

and whimsical shapes that might be flowers or flames,

strewn petals drifting to the floor like shards of glass.

 

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Jessica Goody

Jessica Goody is the award-winning author of Defense Mechanisms: Poems on Life, Love, and Loss (Phosphene Publishing, 2016) and Phoenix: Transformation Poems (CW Books, 2019). Goody’s writing has appeared in over three dozen publications, including The Wallace Stevens Journal, Reader’s Digest, Event Horizon, The Seventh Wave, Third Wednesday, The MacGuffin, Harbinger Asylum and The Maine Review. Jessica is a columnist for SunSations Magazine and the winner of the 2016 Magnets and Ladders Poetry Prize. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

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