The Ten Largest, No. 7, Adulthood, Group IV by Hilma af Klint
It’s the last weekend of April, which means our last, glorious round of poetry and art pairings in celebration of National Poetry Month. In case you’re just tuning in now, we’ve been matching 20x200 artwork with poems from Poets.org all month—12 paired prints + poems in total. The results are refreshing, revealing and, TBH, they were seriously fun to assemble. Dig into all our art + poem duos on the blog, and peep our final pairings below. And of course, pour one out for the end of National Poetry Month! —Team 20x200
P.S. National Poetry Month might be ending but we're big believers in the benefits of a daily dose of poetry. That's why we love Poets.org's Poem-a-Day newsletter. Sign up here!
Paired: Hilma af Klint + Emily Dickinson
There's a certain Slant of light (258) by Emily Dickinson
There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons -
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes -
Heavenly Hurt, it gives us -
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are -
None may teach it - Any -
'Tis the Seal Despair -
An imperial affliction
Send us of the Air -
When it comes, the Landscape listens -
Shadows - hold their breath -
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death -
Paired: Lisa Congdon + Ada Limón
Instructions on Not Giving Up by Ada Limón
More than the fuchsia funnels breaking out
of the crabapple tree, more than the neighbor's
almost obscene display of cherry limbs shoving
their cotton candy-colored blossoms to the slate
sky of Spring rains, it's the greening of the trees
that really gets to me. When all the shock of white
and taffy, the world's baubles and trinkets, leave
the pavement strewn with the confetti of aftermath,
the leaves come. Patient, plodding, a green skin
growing over whatever winter did to us, a return
to the strange idea of continuous living depsite
the mess of us, the hurt, the empty. Fine then,
I'll take it, the trees seem to say, a new slick leaf
unfurling like a fist to an open palm, I'll take it all.
I am an American, Oakland, CA, March 1942 by Dorothea Lange
Paired: Dorothea Lange + Langston Hughes
Let America Be America Again by Langston Hughes
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed—
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
With poems + prints for everyone,
Team 20x200
