Catherine Fitzpatrick
Uxorious Sonnet 1
The God of Love, as everyone complains
Is tricksy, vicious, makes you act the fool,
Or drives you wild with arrows, smites and pains:
We've read the poems, they got taught in school.
They're right. I know, since I'm a lover too.
I am transfixed and pierced and whipped and burned
Lit up, consumed, the whole thesaurus through
Not suffering, or jealous, sad or spurned
But through a love of most uxorious kind:
We live together, have a decade now,
We cook, we wear pajamas as we plod
Around the house, we walk the dog, we find
The time to kiss, and have the odd small row,
And this is love. In all of this, the God.
Uxorious Sonnet 4
Our life is boring. Now and then we get
Some friends to dinner, or we hit a bar,
But mostly not. Our sofa's soft, I've set
Us up a small ad-hoc home cinema,
We have a Switch, and what we do is play
2-player co-op games (not very well)
And watch Inspector Morse or Cadfael,
And sometimes even order take-away.
What nights of joy are these! Of course they give
Me pleasure in themselves—I'm snug, well-fed
And entertained, but none of that's the true
Delight, which is but merely that I live
With her, that now we maybe have ahead
Ten thousand nights where this is what we do.
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The Poetry by the Sea Spring Celebration is available for viewing on Youtube as a permanent memorial and tribute to Mezzo Cammin's founder, Dr. Kim Bridgford (1959-2020). Click here to watch.
The 2022 Poetry by the Sea conference will run May 24-27 2022.
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| My work contributes to the dialogue among feminist writers, historians, critics, and artists to define a space for creative work and agency for women. Through my figurative paintings, I challenge notions about the female body, redefine myths, and recover the lives of historical women. I draw upon my knowledge of art history, symbolism, and iconography to create rich stories about the women I paint. By projecting my own likeness into many of the portraits I create or by using models, I identify with the women I paint and explore my own sense of being an artist and woman in relation to accomplished women across centuries and cultures.
Here we see the pages from my newest artist book, I Wake Again, based on the life of Pre-Raphaelite artist and poet, Elizabeth Siddal. The poems are written by Kim Bridgford, who was a dear friend for 30 plus years. The pages are printed in lithography and the initial letter of each poem is done in silkscreen. The font of the poems is Morris Font. The ink color is graphite. I have reimagined key moments in Elizabeth’s life, such as her birth, her writing poetry, reading, painting, and her death. Each book contains red hair and has been bound by Maureen Cummins.
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