Susan Higgins Donnelly

Dear Liz,
     It was enjoyable talking with you and others at the reunion this weekend.  Thank you very much for all the work you did to help put it together, and for the great slide shows.  I am taking you up on your request to send something to the MHC class website.  I attach below two of what they call ekphrastic poems, basically one art reflecting on another.  In my case they are quite personal reflections and projections.  I hope you will enjoy them and can use one or both for the website purposes.
     I also attach an image of the cover of my new book (which includes the art poems): The Maureen Papers and Other Poems.  It’s my fourth full-length collection, is published by Every Other Thursday Press, and is just now getting out into the world.  I am distributing it at present.  Class members may be interested.  I know you can’t give my contact information on the site but perhaps you can give the name of my website, as well as referring people to the Alumnae office.  the website is   www.susandonnellypoetry.com
     I trust you are getting some well-deserved rest this week.
     Best,
     Susan Higgins Donnelly, May 24, 2021

 

     (Editor’s Note:  In her letter to me, Susan included this excerpt from an application for review:  “I am the author of three poetry books, including Eve Names the Animals and Capture the Flag, as well as six chapbooks.  My poems have appeared in Poetry, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and other journals and anthologies.  I live, write, and teach poetry from my home in Arlington, Massachusetts.”)

 

Two personal looks at art from Susan Donnelly:

Madame Cezanne au Chapeau Vert

Madame Cezanne has put on
her new green ribboned hat
and now wishes she hadn’t.
With an afternoon’s errands to run
and several calls to make,
she has had the bad fortune
to run into Paul coming out
of his studio. He is struck
by the hat’s not quite matching
the color of the plush-green
chair by the door and insists
she pose there a few moments.
Which she does, but very reluctantly,
very “just off,” her eyes of nearly
the same shade glancing to the side,
as she mentally reviews her lists,
her straight spine condescending
to lean just a bit on the chair’s arm
as her feet twitch to stay still,
her lips to keep silent.

                              ———————————————–

Homme au Bain
     painting by Gustave Caillebotte

Impressionist women
forever step in
and out of baths
in various graceful ways
but now for a change
here’s a young fellow
brisk with his towel
slight of build but with
shapely shoulders
whose spine
—if it weren’t
past my time
for such things—
I would draw
one finger down
till it reaches
the small
of his sweet back
and take so long about it
those wet footsteps of his
across the tiled floor
would almost have dried.

     Susan Donnelly