Saturday 11 July 2009

Image

I chose her for her Daniel Boone eyes
Tense, but sharp at something beyond the dust.
Her wide strong mouth turned down
Too strong for bitterness.

Her blond children standing
One at each shoulder, hiding
Their faces in their hands
Like angels weeping on a marble statue.
Contrast of straight and curly hair.

Her frayed blouse,
Her check shirt,
I made an emblem of the time and people

An American woman
Dispossessed, and travelling westward.

7 comments:

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men said...

http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/ppmsc/00100/00188r.jpg

This time around it will be done with digital video and maudlin piano music edited in for ambience -- so the stupid people know it's time to sniff and be sad for the dispossessed.

Chertiozhnik said...

And famous women - the great Dorothy.

I'm getting - little Disney rabbits hopping around the foot of the frame and wrinkling their cute little noses as a sign of Hope Notwithstanding.

Ohara said...

Very emotive
...but somehow real

Chertiozhnik said...

Poo pome, great picture.

All too real, as I pack m'gladstone with my last belongings and head for Devon in the hope of a gold rush.

Not the one you get off grinding down your wedding ring and snorting it.

Mad Dog said...

Great choice. Dorothea Lange is very poignant. Her pics of Japanese children reciting the pledge of allegiance just prior to being rounded up and sent to internment camps makes me want to spit blood.

'Splosion Head said...

From Dorothea Lange to orange tans. For your viewing enjoyment I offer you . . . Hot Chicks with Douchebags.

http://www.hotchickswithdouchebags.com/

Would Ms. Lange be photographing this final de-evolution of Western Civilization?

Chertiozhnik said...

She would be a zoo exhibition.

A real photographer from the real 1930s! Woo!

Photograph the photographer!