The Stafford Challenge, Day Six

Today's Stafford Challenge piece is another Grant Wood ekphrastic poem. Next month I'm giving a talk to the Grant Wood Country Forum so these Grant Wood poems are part of getting ready for this lecture. This poem is a curtal sonnet, like the first couple of my Stafford Challenge poems this year. Grant’s Homegirl After Portrait of Nan by Grant Wood (1931) Grant Wood painted the sweet Portrait of Nan as tribute to his sister. Poised in front of dark drapery, Nan glows with soft light in a loose-fitting beige blouse, in her hand a baby chick. Wood was inspired to paint her this way, probably, to compensate for portraying her in American Gothic as a dour-faced farm woman, blunt and sullen. Here Nan serves as Wood’s quiet Mona Lisa, a tender praise hymn done                                           by a girl’s big brother. —Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.] Here's the Grant Wood painting: Grant Wood, Portrait of Nan (1931) Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Ingat, everyone.  ヅ