Self-Portrait with Diane Seuss

Nicole Reynaga
Vanderbilt University

Abstract

Seuss’s aphorism, “To stillness. To life,” is uniquely prominent throughout her fourth collection. Diane Seuss, a poet of the 21st century, has often been praised for the unlimited expanse of imagination and artistry present in her writing. The literary elements that construct Seuss’ poems allow her to challenge previously conceived notions on a wide range of topics. From femininity and beauty to class, Seuss explores and confronts the truths of existence. Furthermore, her uncompromising juxtapositions open a space to engage the thin line between life and death. Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl is no exception to Seuss’ consummated craft, ultimately capturing a newfound creativity and breaking boundaries that others’ poetry rarely crossed before.

This particular work is split into sections, each beginning with a selected image from which the book received its name. The audience is then thrown into the metaphorical lyricism of Seuss’ first poem, “I Have Lived My Whole Life in a Painting Called Paradise.” The speaker confesses, “I have lived in a painting called Paradise, and even the bad parts / were beautiful” (Seuss 1). From the milkweed to the haystacks of Seuss’ childhood, this starting poem reveals a deep indebtedness to the landscapes of the Midwest. Yet the speaker is hellbent on escaping their stagnant reality in favor of the unfamiliar. Enviously, the speaker declares, “I am told some girls / slide their fingers over the frame and feel the air outside of it, / and some even climb over the edge and plummet into whatever” (Seuss 2). As the next section begins, we assume that the poems to come are what Seuss imagines to be outside the reach of her own eternal Eden. 

Ensuing are two sections of a series of self-portraits. These passages embody the speaker’s sincerity in evaluating their definitions of themself. The first section of portraits becomes a deep exploration of personal memories. The second section then adds another layer to the speaker’s declared presence through the eyes of other artists, such as Silvia Plath and Amy Winehouse. The author’s introspective attitude toward the various subjects presented is brought to life inside these components. Ultimately, Seuss’s childhood experiences growing up in rural Michigan and her deep appreciation for art culminate in “The Hand Has Dropped the Fruit and It’s Painted Where It Falls.” With portrayals like “as if the painter had no design on reality / but only painted it haphazardly an improvisation of objects in space…so much depends upon a red wheelbarrow glazed with rain” (Seuss 65), the reader is thrown headfirst into Seuss’ vision. Thus, it becomes seemingly impossible to leave the world the author has created by putting the book down. 

Within the rest of the poems, it almost feels as if Seuss is holding the reader’s hand, guiding them through an art gallery with brief viewings of Van Gogh, Pollock, and Galizia. For example, Seuss comprehensively describes the elements of Fede Galizia’s Cherries so accurately that one does not need to hold any prior knowledge of the painting:

       The profusion of cherries on the silver

       dish are cherries as we dream them. 

       Each perfectly spherical, nothing

       smashed or distorted, no worms or scars, just perfect

       cherries lit as if each

       held a small red room, and a girl, and a candle bringing

       gold up through the

       red walls. (Seuss 96)

In “What Could Be More Beautiful Than Fede Galizia’s Cherries?” Seuss pays tribute to the seismic shift brought about by still-life painters. The simile comparing the fruit’s vibrant color to a girl holding a candle encapsulates the focus and vigor brought to inanimate objects by artists like Galizia. Seuss is obliged to the minuscule details of her curated assortment of still lifes.

From the complexities of various works of art to the nuances of the American experience, Seuss incorporates an exuberant vitality that highlights the speaker’s sentiments on universally defined thoughts. Notwithstanding, in various parts of the text, the speaker’s ideas become so abstract that I wonder if it would ever be possible to decipher what Seuss was aiming to express. For instance, in “Memory Fed Me until It Didn’t,” Seuss writes, “Then I woke to the words’ still life, not as the after-image / of a dream but as the body wakes and knows it needs / mince pie before the mind has come to claim it” (Seuss 6). Upon cracking open this collection, the reader must brace themselves for Seuss’ dwies of convoluted comparisons. Additionally, the speaker apprehends literal details with such a graphic force that the explicit content is almost off-putting. This can be seen in “Self Portrait with Freddie M (Invention of Thunder),” as Seuss writes, “Freddie’s waistcoat painted with / pictures of his cats was a cage filled with condemned minks. His cats bred / a stillborn black kitten who took up residence between my thighs” (Seuss 86). While captivating, these descriptions appear almost too synthetic, causing Seuss’ disarrayed arguments to come across as muddled.

After viewing a picture of Rembrandt’s complete painting, the reader heaves a long-held sigh in preparation for the heartbreaking ending to the collection. “I Climbed Out of a Painting Called Paradise” is a stunning ending to the unsheathed cynicism that binds the book together. The last poem concludes with, “I went running toward it, all of it. I wanted / my mother, and that is why I left Paradise” (Seuss 103). The speaker’s direct confrontation with death and the full-circle moment in Seuss’ writing offers the audience a devastating yet satisfying conclusion.

Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl is a momentous ascent from the stereotypical one-dimensional confines of modern-day poetry. Ultimately, I implore any introspective reader in search of the transcendental to unravel Seuss’ poetry. After all, Seuss herself believes paradise appears in the substance of “a dark wilderness, and an unswept museum” (Seuss 2).

Works Cited

Seuss, Diane. Still Life with Two Dead Peacocks and a Girl: Poems. Graywolf Press, 2018.

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Scaffold: A Showcase of Vanderbilt First-Year Writing, Volume 5, Spring 2023

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