February 04, 2008

Augusta Savage

Born Augusta Fells, in 1892, Augusta Savage was one of the luminaries of the Harlem Renaissance. She was the first Black to gain acceptance in the National Association of Painters and Sculptors. August Savage died in 1962.

Ever since a friend asked me
What is most frightening
in being a woman artist,
trepidation worries my house.

I thought of Edna St. Vincent
praised for cadence
adored for her bohemian chutzpa
beaten down by morphine and alcohol.

I thought of The Speed of Darkness,
On Lies, Secrets, & Silence
Kathe Kollwitz seeing her future
in the eyes of hungry children.
Paula Becker painting as deep as she could
to get away from Rilke's clawing narcissism.

I thought of Sappho
falling from that stupendous cliff
into the gorgeous Agean,
Mytilene screaming in flames above her.

I thought of my grandmother
born to a serf in Poland
her mother called to the manor house
whenever they wanted her.

Depressing, isn't it?
The violence of their lives flowing to the sea.
I watch them sailing to the lighthouse,
leaving Mr. Ramsey far behind.

I thought of Augusta Savage, who,
after years of success in Paris and New York
awards and accolades, the acclaim of Washington eletes,
found herself in Saugerties, New York
penniless and forgotten.

Savage was everything she was unlike anyone
born into everything that is cold and dark
in weird, schizophrenic Amerika.

Enraged, savage Augusta:
took a pickax: went to her studio:
and smashed
all her work to smithereens

But before she did,
before she did that,
she wrote:
If I can inspire
one of these youngsters
to develop the talent I know they possess,
then my monument to my work
will be in their work.