Transformations

                                                         A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Frances Richards published her lithographs for Les Illuminations with the Curwen Press, London, in 1975. Her prints are transformations of Rimbaud's poems and commentaries on them. The poems in this folder, in turn, comment on and transform both Frances Richards's lithographs and Rimbaud's poems.

The sequence begins with a personal poem for Frances. At the time she died, aged 84, I was half her age. We were planning a second collaborative book of visual and verbal texts, which we were planning to call 42/84.

Frances was married to the Welsh painter Ceri Richards (1903-1971). See also
Keys to Transformation:                                                                                         RB

Sullen gulf. Sudden silence. Frances is gone.
Twice my age, my contemporary,
I thought her unbreakable.

I’m tired, she said, but went on working
right to the end. She hummed old hymns
meanwhile, and themes from music hall.

Nobody will nurse me, she laughed. I won’t
let them. Once that happens you might as well
give up for good. You just stop.

Her wit could etch a line through cliché
and ricochet off chit-chat like
a phrase of Sappho or Socrates.

She bossed and loved her daughters
who grew up, took no notice
and teased and loved her back as she deserved.

She adored her husband and made him. His fame
was in part the doing of her patience and
she outlived him fourteen years.

Her heart of Burslem, Clay Town,
did not collapse. She shunned hacks,
despised phoneys, liked children,

drank a bit, went quiet sometimes,
got depressed, then pulled herself up
to all five feet two of her genius.

Her laughter was more resilient,
supple, infectious, than anyone’s.
It bounced higher, more alive.

She was tough, beautiful, always
courteous. Her work is spiritual
and belongs to the world. Celebrate her.