Poems
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‘going against’ is pleasurable as pleasure
By Pascalle Burton
In response to Marcel Duchamp's 'Female fig leaf ' 1961 (cast of 1950).
See the artwork that inspired this poem in the flesh, along with more than 100 of Marcel Duchamp’s world-renowned pieces, in ‘The Essential Duchamp’ exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 27 April – 11 August 2019.
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Interior, Arensbergs’ Apartment, New York
By Alex GallagherThe body edges against its tensions
each motion captured disrupting the rhythms
as ambiguous sinew stretches out and over
in that frenetic gesture of human autonomy -
Belle Haleine: Eau de Voilette
By Evelyn AraluenDrain the bottle to drink her scent
named in a play of florals
Where different bodies dance in distance
in rose glass haze -
La septième face du dé – Georges Hugnet
By David Astle1,2 – parlez vous?
3,4 – geste d'amour
5,6 – baguette sticks
7? Quoi? Sept? -
portable museum maintenance hinge
By Pascalle Burton
In response to Marcel Duchamp's 'The Box of 1914' 1913–14.
See the artwork that inspired this poem in the flesh, along with more than 100 of Marcel Duchamp’s world-renowned pieces, in ‘The Essential Duchamp’ exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 27 April – 11 August 2019.
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Marcel Duchamp at the age of 85
By David AstleMD at LXXXV:
shadow-cratered, and crated:
the grand MOMA moon,
who created, and catered, -
Stair/Case
By David StavangerTo cast myself on a wall
I literally had to stop time
let the staircase ascend my body
like a dream I had where I forgot -
‘Ciné-Sketch: Adam and Eve (Marcel Duchamp and Bronia Perlmutter), 1924
By Brian Fuata
In response to Man Ray's ‘Ciné-Sketch: Adam and Eve (Marcel Duchamp and Bronia Perlmutter)’ portrait of Marcel Duchamp, 1924.
See the artwork that inspired this poem in the flesh, along with more than 100 of Marcel Duchamp’s world-renowned pieces, in ‘The Essential Duchamp’ exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 27 April – 11 Augu… -
Fountain
By Evelyn AraluenExcellent I through utility
behold the humble fixtures
The water egoism – activity working
no other utility but the plumber -
Marcel Duchamp with Pocket Chess Set
By Evelyn AraluenI’ll play the light
and pocket each memory in mourning black
There’s something to be won from a rightful step:
a consent to match -
Marcel Duchamp as Rrose Sélavy
By Alex GallagherEros by any other name arrested
distill those androgyne words of love
to spill like ink and ignite and expire
without language to (s)peak of — -
Dart-Object
By Evelyn AraluenIf you’d known what and where I was leaving
from the pieces fallen slack by the mould
Desire might invite key or lock
or tempt you to hold objects in the dark -
Bottlerack(et)
By David StavangerArtists only eat their replicas
when disturbed, fearing for the original’s life.
Courtship rituals are prolonged during which
artist and object circle one another. -
With Hidden Noise
By Evelyn AraluenThis burnt out neon clack is to carry
a fire a long free sea
It’s fine and cheap and here
where deserts provide and unravel apart -
Portrait (Dulcinea)
By David StavangerPicasso never mentally dressed a woman on the street.
He could bear the thought of less and less clothes.
Picasso approached a subject with an eye detached.
Give me a woman’s hat and I’ll fill it -
Reunion: Marcel Duchamp, John Cage and a 1964 Château Kirwan
By Pascalle Burton
In response to Marcel Duchamp's 'Red and Black Castles (Two Maquettes for Chess Pieces for a Wall-Mounted Chessboard)' 1930.
See the artwork that inspired this poem in the flesh, along with more than 100 of Marcel Duchamp’s world-renowned pieces, in ‘The Essential Duchamp’ exhibition at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, 27 April … -
Rendezvous of Sunday, February 6, 1916
By Alex GallagherA sinner’s taxonomy
of wax syllables straying, impatient:
begging you to spell it out
to tax and file away those problematic punctuations -
one can look at seeing; one cannot hear hearing
By Pascalle Burton
In response to Marcel Duchamp's 'Sonata' 1911.
Source text: ‘The beauty of indifference: The art of Marcel Duchamp’ in The Artist's Mind: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Creativity, Modern Art and Modern Artists by George Hagman (2010) -
Rotorelief
By Evelyn Araluenmy song spins, sings
the planets each their centre
rotate each relief
so desire -
L’Opposition et les Cases Conjugées sont Réconciliées
By Evelyn AraluenI say I won’t go
and you say you won’t choose
We make games of blocking and correspondence
but cannot sustain the play
