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Art Show: Conversations with Dead Poets

Fatal Fetal

by Erika Nelson

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Art: Fatal Fetal by Artist Erika Nelson

This show exposed me to more poets than I've ever encountered in my life!
One of the first poets I responded to was the late Anne Sexton who lost her battle with mental illness and committed suicide in 1976 at age 46. My 9"x12" mixed media entitled "Fatal Fetal" was inspired by "Wanting to Die". The whole poem was powerful but these two stanzas were the ones that inspired my art:

"...To thrust all that life under your tongue!--
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death's a sad Bone; bruised, you'd say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison..."

The poet seemed alone and hopeless. The figure in my piece seems cold and appears to lack comfort from clothing or human contact. Taking the fetal position and her fingers in her mouth, she appears to be regressing into a dark direction like a deep depression.


Detail Image


Detail Image for art Fatal Fetal

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