This evening I’m off to a talk on Bleeding Heart Yard, on which more tomorrow, but that led me to a book of poems of that title, by William Scammel, and I think his poem, titled “Retrospective”, has Gwen John rather well, if very much from a male POV:
In part:
“Gwen John’s women only just
make it onto the canvas. Pale blue’s
the colour of the birth they choose
not to announce. They’re fading fast
into a future of unreachable
addresses, high single bed,
cats, letters posted or unposted,
three or four cowslips on the table …”
Bleeding Heart Yard, William Scammel, Peterloo Poets, 1992, p.17.
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