Power & Play, Artist & Audience: A Look at Jory Mickelson’s “Portraiture”
Art, in whatever form it takes, is a revelatory thing. Whether photography, painting, or poetry, we want it to reveal something hitherto unknown or, at the very least, unknown to us. Jory Mickelson’s lyrical and sensual poem “Portraiture” reveals the intricate interplay (or maybe I should say power play) between artist, audience, muse, and medium.
Mickelson begins:
He wanted
an audience to watch
while he makes the portrait
while he talks about how
he chose me, makes me
pose for him, for you
By exploring one art form through the lens of another (painting through poetry), Mickelson is able to conjure a kind of creative synergy. There is a doubling of our appreciation, of our excitement, as we are invited to be participants in both mediums; we are voyeuristic “audience” as well as enthusiastic reader. Mickelson themself then becomes author and painter. I’d go as far as to say Mickelson becomes a dancer as these lines are so tight, so controlled, yet remain perfectly fluid. Each line manages to guide a reader through various steps like the perfect partner. Each line glides unexpectedly into the next one, often holding one meaning until the following text surprises and spins us into another interpretation.
“In posing , I give / up almost everything” — the beat, the rhythm, then the twist of meaning, from giving to giving up. It’s an exhilarating dance for readers who enjoy the movement of poetry.
Mickelson goes on, completely in their element. If there is a misstep here, a single stumble, I can’t find it. But let me move on from dance. Poetry most often is understood *as* poetry based on the relationship between language and the line. Nailing down a definition of poetry gets blurry but when I read “Portraiture,” I certainly feel like I can point to these lines and state without a doubt, “THIS is poetry.” There is music embedded in the language, a romanticism and lushness held in check by Mickelson’s instinctual understanding of breath and restraint. They know when to push, and they know when the reader should pull.
Read each line slowly and deliberately. Let the words tumble in the mouth: pose, humiliation, spit, illumination. Look at how the author placed each word, indented the lines. It is composed (both verb and noun) with enough tension to make it delightful. It’s about beauty. It’s about spit. Ours. Theirs.
Over at the now tragically defunct “The Seattle Review of Books” website, there’s a quote I often come back to which reads “book reviews are a privileged form because they’re the only type of criticism that takes the form of the art they’re critiquing.” It’s one of my favorite observations. When I read a poem like “Portraiture,” I am reminded of what a privilege it is to use language to describe language. When I read a poem like “Portraiture,” I am reminded what it is like to be emotionally, sensually posed by an author who understands the power of poetry and painting and photography (and and and). These are the things that can change us, immortalize us. These are the things, much like the paintbrushes in that final stanza, that can truly touch us.
