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The writer, Djelloul Marbrook, once told me a personal story. Years ago when he was a journalist working in Washington DC, he got very depressed and nothing, not booze or drugs would do the trick. At lunch, he started to go to the National Gallery of Art. There he saw paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot that gave him solace and he continued to return to them. He was particularly lifted by the way Corot painted the undersides of leaves and wrote a poem about it, realizing too that the artist had painted this for him. He was the reason, Corot’s raison d’être. In a world like that, Djelloul could no longer be depressed and decided to get on with it. As Corot had inspired Djelloul, Djelloul has certainly inpired me.
Here is his poem:
Undersides of leaves
Painter of undersides of leaves,
shuddered cubist light, Corot
held seconds in his hands,
listening to their murmurings.
Aspens were his populace.
Conspiring with their haste to go,
he daubed their babbling whispers
with scents of sisters fled.
The cool nostalgias of your genes
confide Corot is your native due.
Before you came as hostages here
you were notes struck upon the air.
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Ville D’Avray by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
About Djelloul Marbrook:
https://djelloulmarbrook.substack.com/p/djelloul-marbrook-american-poet
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Djelloul Marbrook’s Far From Algiers is published by The Kent State University Press. You can check it out here:
https://www.kentstateuniversitypress.com/2010/far-from-algiers/
