Joan Snyder's Poem-Paintings

Happy Birthday, Joan Snyder, born April 16, 1940, in Highland Park, NJ. Watching a slideshow of the painter's life and work at the School of Visual Arts recently, I realized how often she incorporates text in her works on paper and canvas. Here are a few of her poem-paintings and the sources of the poems she used.

Ah Sunflower! 1994-95

 Ah Sun-flower! weary of time, 

Who countest the steps of the Sun: 

Seeking after that sweet golden clime 

Where the traveller’s journey is done. 

Where the Youth pined away with desire, 

And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow: 

Arise from their graves and aspire, 

Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.

Wm. Blake

See What a Life, 2010

"See what a life the gods have given us, set round with pain and pleasure. It is too strange for sorrow; it is too strange for joy." HD Thoreau

Love's Deep Grapes, 1984

"I saw stones weep. There is a sadness in things apart from connected with human suffering."

Virgil, The Aeneid

Joan Snyder