A compelling collection of poems, Late Self-Portraits conveys an intimate description of lives through a collage of portraits and affliction. Weaving history and the sacred, both intimate and worldly, one encounters a blind Jorge Luis Borges with his mother, a glass confessional in the of Notre Dame Cathedral, Frida Kahlo in Mexico, ghosts, a neurosurgeon’s prognosis, and Marie Laveau in New Orleans. Whether in a field with Joan of Arc, encountering the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, or having dinner with Hades, these are haunting poems of loss and unearthing, equally bold, personal, and tender.
From “Dinner with Hades”:
He shows me a birthday cake, candled. My name is written in pomegranate
seeds. It’s like vertigo. Just before he seeks to devour, he halts to birdsong—
sound of goldfinch, bluebird, hawk, lilting of sparrows. Of whippoorwill
and dove. Wings flap, so many wings, a cool breeze as leaves unfurl into a
once forgotten green and I am back on earth, held in my mother’s arms.
ContentsI.MissingGods of a Grand MalSalem, America, 1692EpilepticAppointment with Dr. SiegelIntensive CareStudy of a Woman in the WoodsSometimes We Slip Out of Our BodiesApneaPortrait of Joan of Arc (1412–1431)Canonization of Joan of Arc, May 1920Portrait of Marie LaveauMarie CuriePortrait of Orpheus, Frida Kahlo, Love & DeathTell Me All Your SecretsPortrait of Caravaggio Painting Death of the VirginNew ReligionWinter ChapelDonations, Saint-SulpicePortrait of Notre-Dame with My SonTestamentIf You Believe the Seizures Moved OnMatadoraPortrait of Spain, CubismThe Last CastratoPrayer FlagsArs PoeticaLast Tango in RedII.Rembrandt, Late Self-PortraitOur Lady of Broken WatersFentanylPortrait of Borges with His MotherLast SupperPortrait of Dylan ThomasPortrait with Francis Bacon, Study for a Running DogTo Basquiat at the GuggenheimPortraits in the National GalleryInclusionPortrait of an Old Dog with Crooked TeethEffigy with HornsEffigy with ShellMedusaModern ColosseumOn the Morning That Follows My DeathDeath of the BotanistVisions of Johanna, jpg #12All SoulsDinner with HadesBorn on Rembrandt’s BirthdayPandemia, Mouth of InsomniaPoliticoGod of NightfallAct of FaithNotesAcknowledgments
MARY MORRIS is the author of two previous books of poetry, Enter Water, Swimmer and Dear October, and is a recipient of the Rita Dove Award (2008), Western Humanities Review’s Mountain West Writers’ Prize (2019), the New Mexico Discovery Award (2005), and the National Federation of Press Women’s National Communications Contest Award (2021), and is a finalist for the 2021 International Book Awards.