dana schutz's 2019 sculpture, atlas — atlas (dana schutz, 2019)

Southfield

From faraway farming village

to fierce furnace city

A shuttle struck across sea,

threading wood, water, springs,

gold and green,

through Sheaf and separation,

dreaming of that great island

When I knew you,

you were so small,

so changed,

so loved

Nauseous green walls clash

with your sharp cerulean throne

Greasy nonenal guided by your hand,

the world turning at your pleasure

Its centre close to collapse,

though the planet still follows your lead

The sculptor

A facsimile smile painted on the face

of this man of loam and clay

Speaking without a mouth,

hollow murmurs echoed and itched

Passersby look through his shrunken body,

shrinking every day, pacing without touch across concrete

Dough-soft hands recoil from heat, cold, touch,

registering no input, bound and unavailing

Til he picks up pace,

smearing off his imitation in paint

Clumsily moulding eyes, mouth, nose

stumbling through noise and sunlight and aroma

His head opened as if by Pandora,

possibility unfurling and turning him inside out

Raw nerves set alight by the cool morning sun,

and a mouth howling with birdsong

i wrote these poems for an introductory creative writing course i took online in 2023, taught by dr livia franchini for goldsmiths. at the time she pointed out that both poems “pivot” in the middle, which i hadn’t realised as i was writing them.

Southfield is unchanged from that time, but The sculptor has one change - the fourth line used to read “hollow murmurs echoed and howled”, until livia rightly pointed out that i then use “howling” in the final line.

i took the photo of atlas at the hepworth a few months before writing the poems.