Francesca

Back from Chi-town few minutes ago. Paula Jane needed to see a film playing there (The Woodmans, at the Gene Siskel Film Center) to better inform a sequence of poems she's writing about the extraordinary Francesca Woodman (a couple of her well-known photos, at right, and bottom).

I'm still assimilating the onslaught of images—of sensory manipulation, by an artist of great power—along with the human tragedy attached to her family, and the sadness I feel, personally, from Francesca's evident despair.

Ordinarily, I am quite leery of claims other media make of being poetry, or of poetry itself extended to exotic or unconventional forms. Examining this woman's work, though, I am not troubled at all by the idea that her achievement was primarily poetic, in its nature. A body of work that is as affecting as her's is rare. If you've not seen it, Do yourself a favor, and check it out.