I thought I'd written my hundredth post a while back, but when I totted up, the list included some drafts which never made it. So this is officially Numero 100! A century!
As I've mentioned previously, the Saturday Poem in the Guardian is a feature which both irks and delights me. Tearing open the plastic wrapping on Saturday's paper, I'm always excited to find out which poem has been selected for us in the Review section. I'm irritated that despite there being scores of brilliant and talented women poets, for some reason this column seems to have a tendency to favour male poets. Not that I don't like poems written by men, but so far this year, poems by men have featured 16 times, poems by women only 5. What's all that about then?
Anyhoo, today is one of those red letter days when another woman poet is being showcased - woohoo! Pascale Petit is the fifth woman to have made it into the column this year.
Her poem The Bus is from her latest book What The Water Gave Me: Poems After Frida Kahlo. The collection is a series of poems inspired by the life and paintings of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. The poem is based on the above painting.
I find the poem and the painting incredibly moving. As a young woman Frida Kahlo was in a bus crash and suffered horrendous injuries. Not surprisingly, this had a profound impact on the course her life took afterwards.
Like the painting, Petit's poem is a poignant portrait of Kahlo's world in the moments before that life-changing experience.
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