Gertrude Stein (and Mina Loy, and Picasso)

While my other posts have mainly focused on the works of the poets, this one is different. This is the epic post you've been waiting for.

Gertrude Stein was born in Pennsylvania in 1874, traveled to Europe with her parents, and returned to California in 1878. She studied psychology at Radcliffe, then medicine at Johns Hopkins, but did not finish either program. In 1903 she moved back to Europe with her partner and secretary, Alice Toklas, and "their home... soon became gathering spot for many young artists and writers," many of whom would go on to become famous (Academy of American Poets).

Reading her poem "If I Told Him: A Completed Portrait of Picasso," I knew it needed to be a video. A video with some slick editing. I had planned to do that this last week, but that poem is long, and video editing is difficult - I think I don't have the hardware or software to do it as well as I'd like. You can hear her reading it, here.

The poem in question is hers, of course, written to Pablo Picasso, upon the completion of his portrait of her (see the above right image).

This is my "practice poem" - I was still figuring out how to edit video, and do lighting and costuming and whatnot. It's me, doing a reading of "A Light in the Moon" - a much shorter poem than "If I Told Him." Gertrude Stein's poetry reads kind of disjointed, so it makes for a wonderful first-film-editing project. I wanted her phrases to seem kind of disconnected in my video. You can read the poem, here.

I wouldn't be the first to imitate Gertrude Stein, and Picasso isn't the only one to praise her with art. Mina Loy wrote a poem to her, too, which pays homage to her style in that the phrases are short, and the word-pairings are unusual:

Mina Loy - Gertrude Stein

Curie
of the laboratory
of vocabulary
she crushed
the tonnage
of consciousness
congealed to phrases
to extract
a radium of the word

Gertrude Stein - "Apple"

Apple plum, carpet steak, seed clam, colored wine, calm seen, cold cream, best shake, potato, potato and no no gold work with pet, a green seen is called bake and change sweet is bready, a little piece a little piece please.

A little piece please. Cane again to the presupposed and ready eucalyptus tree, count out sherry and ripe plates and little corners of a kind of ham. This is use.