Category: Emily Dickinson

Give Me A (Spring) Break

4/3/2026

This is my final #DickinsonDaily post for a bit. I’ll be in LA for a few days – including, coincidentally, the evening “Foul Play with Anthony Davis” premiers on TBS. What does that have to do with Emily Dickinson? Absolutely nothing! However, my daughter stars in about half the pranks throughout the show – so that will be fun to see the first episode with her.

Speaking of pranks, did you see the Insta post from the Emily Dickinson Museum on April 1? The museum “rebranded” itself as the “Em Dash Museum.”

Yesterday, on April Tooth, I wrapped up a series of posts on the Amy Sherald exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art entitled “American Sublime,” HERE. All of my posts on Sherald’s portraits were written "from the perspective of a Dickinson enthusiast."

If you’ve never been to the Baltimore Museum of Art, you should go! It’s a great museum, and the collection from the Cone sisters – friends of Gertrude Stein – definitely put the museum on the map! Who were the Cone sisters, you ask. Check HERE.

If you go, be sure to visit the John Waters Gender-Neutral Bathroom. ;-)

“Waters in the Baltimore Sun characterized his wish for the restrooms to bear his name as analogous to the impulse that brought about Marcel Duchamp’s Untitled, 1917, a porcelain urinal bearing the artist’s signature. ‘They thought I was kidding and I said, “No, I’m serious.” It’s in the spirit of the artwork I collect, which has a sense of humor and is confrontational and minimalist and which makes people crazy.’”

More info is HERE.

While there (at the museum, not the John Water's Gender-Neutral Bathroom) we enjoyed lunch at “Getrude's Chesapeake Kitchen”:

“Lauded by Food & Wine, Travel & Leisure, the Washington Post, Edible DC, The Baltimore Sun, and a multi-year winner of Baltimore Magazine’s “Best of Baltimore", Gertrude’s serves locally sourced farm-fresh food that preserves Chesapeake culinary traditions.” More info HERE.

The house-made Blackberry-Lemon soda was refreshing, and I tried the cream of crab soup (delicious – with the perfect amount of sherry) and the crab cake sampler, 2 “Gertie’s,” broiled, and 2 “Boardwalk,” fried.

Oh, you can see by the pic below that I also picked up a copy of Celeste Doaks' volume of poems, “American Herstory.” I’ll check that out soon – perhaps on my flight to LA. Info on Doaks is HERE.

So that’s a wrap for now – or nearly a wrap. One last poem to share to cap off my recent days of seemingly non-stop work, writing, and revelries, Dickinson’s “The Lassitudes of Contemplation”; additionally, the poem is offered in anticipation of my coming hours of vacation (though I suspect they’ll be anything but “still,” however I do believe they will be refreshing – and perhaps they will beget a force of spirited refreshments):

The Art Within the Soul

4/2/2026

Back on March 19, my wife and I visited the Baltimore Museum of Art to see the exhibit of Amy Sherald’s portraiture, “American Sublime.” A placard on the wall in one of the galleries included this: “Sherald takes inspiration from a wide range of authors – including Jane Austen, Octavia E. Butler, Emily Dickinson, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison – whose work spans genres and time periods but shares a concern with the liberation of people oppressed in body, mind, or spirit.”

Well, you know which name jumped out at me – so on March 21, I began a multi-day special series of posts related to the exhibit “from the point of view of a Dickinson enthusiast.” I’m sure there is more I could explore and cover (there always is), but for now, I’ll conclude with this post by tying up a few loose ends, sharing a few other poems and articles, and offering a few final thoughts.

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR WHAT'S BELOW:

1. POEMS BY DICKINSON WHICH PROVIDED THE TITLES FOR THE POSTS
2. OTHER SHERALD PAINTINGS WITH TITLES INSPIRED BY LITERATURE OR POETRY
3. A FEW INTERESTING ARTICLES RE: AMY SHERALD
4. CONCLUDING WORDS BY SHERALD & DICKINSON

1. POEMS BY DICKINSON WHICH PROVIDED THE TITLES FOR THE POSTS:

The title for the initial post on March 21 (HERE), “A Theme Stubborn as Sublime” – referencing the name of the exhibit, “American Sublime” – comes from line 6 of Dickinson’s poem “Some we see no more, Tenements of Wonder.”

The title for the second post, “Testing Our Horizons” (HERE) – about Sherald’s “Ecclesia (The Meeting of Inheritance and Horizons)” – plays on the opening line of Dickinson’s “These tested Our Horizon.” The poem appears at the bottom of the post. The title for the third post, “Then to the Royal Clouds” (HERE) – about Sherald’s painting “Kingdom” – also comes from a poem included in the post, “The nearest dream recedes – unrealized.” However, this is not the case in the fourth post from March 24, “Silence is all we dread” (HERE) – about the paintings “Trans Forming Liberty” and “For Love, and for Country.” That title comes from the opening line from this work by Dickinson:

The title for the post on March 25, “A Nearness to Tremendousness” – about “Pilgrimage of the Chameleon” (HERE) – comes from a poem by Dickinson which opens with that line. However, the online Dickinson lexicon states that the term in the poem is meant to convey “Terror; dread; [amelioration] vastness; immensity; universality; enormous power; massive force; [metaphor] infinity; omnipresence; divinity; Deity.” I used it to convey the possibility of greatness, something monumental.

“Mutual Monarch,” the title of the post on March 26 (HERE) – about Sherald’s painting “What’s precious inside of him does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence (All American)” – is from Dickinson’s poem “Me from Myself – to banish,” which is included in the post. However, that is not so for the poem which provided the title for the March 27 post, “The Inlets of the Mind” (HERE) which discusses four different paintings. That title comes from this poem:

“Until the Fight is Done,” the title for the post on March 28 (HERE) – about Sherald’s “As American as Apple Pie – is a line from Dickinson’s poem “Sic transit gloria mundi” (HERE).

In the post dated March 29, I shared “Yesterday is History,” the poem which provided the title, “Yesterday is Poetry”(HERE) – all about the painting “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it.” That is also the case for the post dated March 31, entitled “What Mystery Pervades” (HERE) – focusing on two different paintings. The poem, “What mystery pervades a well” shows as a “Bonus Poem” at the bottom of the post.

2. OTHER SHERALD PAINTINGS WITH TITLES INSPIRED BY LITERATURE OR POETRY

Sherald was inspired by lines of literature or poetry for titles for some of her paintings (for example, see the posts on March 26 and 27), but there are others, too, with titles drawn from well-known works; three examples are below (left to right), “’Hope’ Is the Thing with Feathers” with a title from a poem by Dickinson; and two paintings with titles inspired by lines from Jane Austen, “A single man in possession of a good fortune” (from “Pride and Prejudice”) and “There Is No Charm Equal to Tenderness of Heart” (from “Emma”).

3. A FEW INTERESTING ARTICLES RE: AMY SHERALD

I quoted Aaron Robertson's article "Amy Sherald’s Sacred MonumentsBlack portraiture in an iconoclastic age" for Commonweal Magazine (July 2025) in yesterday's post, but I don't believe I linked to the article. The fulll piece is HERE. It is definitely worth a read!

I also enjoyed Forbes magazines' "Artist Amy Sherald Delivers ‘The Great American Fact" (HERE) by Tom Teicholz, a "former contributor" to the magazine and -- in his words, "a culture maven and arts enthusiast."

Here's a bit from the piece:

All the figures in Sherald’s work are Black which would be unremarkable if the appearance of Black figures in portraiture and art history were unremarkable. But it is not, and so Sherald’s work is, in part, not so much a corrective as way of opening our eyes (and that of art history’s) to the images, subjects, and persons who have always been there – if not represented often enough.

In this regard, Sherald is no more painting Black people than other painters were painting white people. She is painting the people she sees, much the same way as Alex Katz was painting the persons he came across. In fact, to render Black skin tones, Sherald uses grisaille, a method of using gray monochromes, historically used to render or imitate sculpture.

My point, however clumsily made, is that Sherald is not make paintings about Blackness or Black history so much as she is capturing those normal moments that are in no way race-based; in which Black people exist but in which they are rarely seen as present.

There's an interesting interview from 2018 at Art Papers dot org (HERE) with Sherald and the site's former editor and artistic director Victoria Camblin who "spoke with the artist about living and working in not-New-York, the power of being mainstream, and how making art is a damn job."

One line that jumped out at me was this -- and I suspect you can guess why:

AS: I don’t think I would be here talking to you if I had moved to New York (from Baltimore). I think a lot of the opportunities that came my way came because I was in a smaller city. I used to try to go to New York for every single opening, thinking that’s how I was going to make more connections. There was this one time at an opening when I saw that they had this hidden door camouflaged within a wall that I saw someone walk into. That’s where all the people that I needed to be talking to were, but I’m just out here scouring the place for nobody, and I’m a nobody, too.

I found a wonderful piece from the Art Institute of Chicago on the story behind Sherald's portrait of Michelle Obama, HERE.

From April 2025, there is a very interesting article on "The Meteor" by Rebecca Carroll entitled "The Wonder of Amy Sherald, Ordinary Black life is extraordinary in the artist’s first major mid-career museum survey" (HERE).

There's a very intriguing response from Sherald when asked by Carroll, "What happens next for you? Take a look at the artist's response at that time -- back in early 2025:

"I’m hoping that this show will make it into the National Portrait Gallery without having to make any compromises based on who’s sitting in an office at the White House. And I don’t mean, 'Well, if I can’t have this painting of two men kissing and a trans person, then I’m not going to do the show.' I feel like that would be a mistake. I feel like it’s a mistake to step down from boards just because [Trump] wants to take over the Kennedy Center. Now more than ever, I feel like it’s important we be in those rooms and not shutting down the conversation. I think the bigger moment would be the work being in the Smithsonian Institution and people coming there to look at American history and Presidents, and then walking into my exhibition."

4. CONCLUDING WORDS BY SHERALD & DICKINSON:

While her portraits are stylistically realistic, Sherald has described her approach as conceptual: “Once my paintings are complete, the model no longer lives in that painting themselves. I see something bigger, more symbolic. An archetype.”

Amy Sherald paints the truth.

She Could Not Live Upon the Past

3/31/2026

I’m sorry to hit you with this so early in the morning (or at whatever time of the day it is that you are reading this), but put your notes away and clear your desks – I have a pop quiz for you. Well, actually I have a mom quiz – nonetheless, put everything away, no talking, and remember – keep your mind’s eye on your own inner awareness, understandings and perceptions. This is just a quick, one-question formative assessment to see where we all are.

Ready? Here’s the question:

Imagine you are strolling through an exhibit at an art museum, and you enter a gallery where controlled lighting illuminates a painting before you called “Mother and Child.” What does the painting look like? Describe it in a mental paragraph of at least five sentences.

NO CHEATING – AND DO NOT LOOK AT THE IMAGES BELOW UNTIL YOU’VE COMPLETED YOUR PARAGRAPH.

Okay, if you’ve finished your description, you can now look at the images above, the results of a search on “mother and child paintings" – and below, Amy Sherald’s painting “Mother and Child.” Which looks most like you described? No need to answer now – that was just a rhetorical question.

NOTE: I didn’t run a search for depictions of “Madonna and Child" paintings, but can you imagine the reaction (dare I say "outrage") by conservative White America had Sherald dubbed her painting thusly?

Were this the case, I suspect ire would boil over in some White/"religious" circles stemming from an inability to see beyond traditional, Eurocentric cultural imagery. Were this the case, narrow-minded “godly” congregants would view the depiction as an attack by "woke" ideology and political correctness. Were this the case, starchy fundamentalists would view the work as “inauthentic" – and the truth of the matter is – nothing could be further from the truth.

Sherald’s painting is of two individuals, a Black mother and her child. What beyond that does the viewer have to consider? Their clothes; their posture; their facial expressions. There is no background to provide context for preconceptions.

AN ASIDE: Hmm…this brought to mind a memory from my past. I remember I was in a suit. At the time, I was the principal at a middle school, and I did dress “professionally” on most days, but it was not often that I wore an actual suit – but on this particular day, I remember I was wearing a suit. I was heading into a local post office, and a woman was outside standing by a small table and holding a clipboard. She asked if I would add my signature to her petition – I believe it had something to do with water. Water purity? Water cleanliness? Something to do with water and the local environment?

She thrust her clipboard toward me with the signature page and asked for me to sign. I asked if I could see the petition – I did support her cause, but I wanted to see what it was I was about to put my name to. She didn’t have a copy of the petition. She only had her verbal description of it – and the signature page.

I declined to sign, and as I walked away, I was met with a barrage of insults all centered on my appearance – a gray-haired, middle-aged white man in a suit. This was before the Trumpocene Era, so think barbed epithets comparing me to the likes of George H. Bush and Newt Gingrich.

I didn’t say anything back. I entered the post office and went about my business, but all I could think was, “Great Scott, that woman doesn’t know me at all.”

ANOTHER ASIDE: Who was “Great Scott”? I looked it up. The saying most likely originates from 19th-century references to U.S. Army General Winfield Scott, who was nicknamed “Old Fuss and Feathers.” Well, in this case, I was more “Great Scott,” and the woman with the clipboard was more “Fuss and Feathers “ – but I say all of this because Sherald leaves us with nothing but appearance when we view and judge her painting “Mother and Child.”

In exploring this work, I found one article (HERE) that succinctly described what was going on in the United States at the time Sherald created it:

“From 2012 to 2020, Black people were repeatedly desecrated by state and vigilante forces; images of Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, George Floyd, Sandra Bland, and others circulated widely. Elizabeth Alexander named the young Black Americans who came of age during this period the Trayvon Generation, after Trayvon Martin, who was killed at seventeen by a civilian who wanted to be a policeman in Florida.”

Trayvon Martin was killed in 2012. Michael Brown was gunned down in 2014. Eric Garner was killed in 2014. Tamir Rice was shot to death in 2014. There were many others. Sherald painted “Mother and Child” in 2016. Later came the murders of Elijah McClain (2019) and George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breanna Taylor (2020). Again, there are many other names prior to and after 2016, but I mention this because I look at the facial expression of Sherald’s “Mother” and see disbelief if not disgust as to what was/is going on in our society.

The article I mentioned above continued:

The egregious death of Sonya Massey at the hands of a police officer in 2024 suggests that this period is not over. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has taken new aim at Black histories, targeting the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington; the museum’s former director, Kevin Young, left his position last month.”

The article, entitled "Amy Sherald’s Sacred Monuments, Black portraiture in an iconoclastic age," was written by Aaron Robertson for "Commonweal" magazine, and provides an excellent narrative about the painting as related to sacred, recent societal events, and other artworks:

Sherald’s engagement with the sacred is deliberate, a humane response to an age that seems intent on denying human dignity. Her Mother and Child (2016) builds on the long practice of Black artists riffing on Marian iconography. The Black nationalist and artist Glanton Dowdell resurrected the motif as a countercultural symbol in the 1960s for the Shrine of the Black Madonna, a Pan-African Orthodox Christian church in Detroit. Since the start of the Black Lives Matter movement around 2013, other contemporary artists like Titus Kaphar, Mark Doox, Kate Egawa, and Oasa DuVerney have all incorporated Virgin and Child imagery into their work, often as meditations on the mortality of Black women and their children, usually their sons. Sherald’s version is perhaps most directly in conversation with the late Elizabeth Catlett’s unsentimental Madonna II (1991) linocut. These children—girls, it seems—are not playful Raphaelite cherubs, but are instead preternaturally perceptive, plainly dressed, and awed, if not frightened, by their mother’s Byzantine solemnity. In these paintings, the sacred is not elevated above the world but embedded in its earthiest tones, its squinting, sun- and sweat-drenched laborers.

Alas, dear reader, I've run out of time today --and I have not yet to connect the painting and these thoughts to Dickinson -- so consider this post "under construction." I shall return here tomorrow to see if I can wrap things up!

CONTINUED ON 4/1:

So what does the Belle of Amherst have to say about all of this?

Well, I made no connection in my mind with any poem in which Dickinson used the word “mother” – she used that word in only nine poems, and in most, the lines were about “Mother Nature.” She used the word “Mama” once, in “Mama never forgets her birds,” sent to her cousins’ following the death of their mother.

In October 1885, Dickinson wrote this to her friend Jeanie Greenough:

I had the luxury of a Mother a month longer than you, for my own Mother died in November, but the anguish also was granted me to see the first snow upon her Grave, the following Day - which, dear friend, you were spared - but Remembrance engulfs me, and I must cease -

I wish I could speak a word of courage, tho' that Love has already done. Who could be motherless who has a Mother's Grave within confiding reach? Let me enclose the tenderness which is born of bereavement. To have had a Mother - how mighty!

How mighty, indeed – a conviction reflected in the visage of Sherald”s “Mother.”

What I see when I look at her expression, and I see her gazing back at me – are you ready for this? What I see is this:

Now I’m not thinking that this woman is so discriminating that she'd allow only one into her inner circle, but at this point in time, the door is open and she’s pausing at the gate. Observing. Surveying. Returning my gaze.

Will I earn her trust?

BONUS POEMS:

The poem above on the right, "She could not live upon the past," provided the title for this post, and it is one of the few of Dickinson's poems to include the word "mother."

Also, in exploring this topic, I found the poem "Mother and Child" by Louise Gluck:

What Mystery Pervades

3/30/2026

In 1910, composer Victor Herbert and lyricist Rida Johnson Young wrote the song “Ah! Sweet Mystery of LIfe” for their operetta “Naughty Marietta.” In the 1935 film Naughty Marietta, the song was famously performed as a duet by main characters Princess Marie de Namour de la Bonfain (played by Jeanette MacDonald) and Captain Richard Warrington (played by Nelson Eddy). The piece opens with these lines:

Ah! sweet mystery of life,
At last I've found thee,
Ah! I know at last the secret of it all.

Click the pic above to hear "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life"

’Tis true, the princess and the captain discovered the secret of it all, the sweet mystery of life! Do you, dear reader, know the secret of it all? I suspect you do. I’ll reveal the answer at the conclusion of this post so that you can confirm that you do, indeed, know; however, I’d first like to share two sweet mysteries of life painted by Amy Sherald and add a bit about life’s mysteries from the pen of Dickinson.

Concerning Dickinson, Carol Rumens of “The Guardian” wrote this, “There's no poet who's so consistently disconcerting, fascinating, odd-angled. Like Stephen Hawking, Dickinson takes you to the edge of the cosmos – which may be billions of light years away or at your back door….the cosmos in microcosm.”

Quite mysterious, no? I’ll get to some of her lines soon enough.

Concerning Sherald, the two mysterious paintings I’d like to share are “Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between” (below left) and “The Boy with No Past" (below right).

Let’s begin with “The Boy with No Past.” Now I ask, dear reader, how can it be that this boy has no past? True, Emily Dickinson said, “Forever is composed of nows” – but is it not, in reverse, also composed of “thens”? So what is it that has happened to his “thens”? Why does he have no past?

I have two interpretations, one positive and one not so. Let’s examine the optimistic one first. To do so, let me provide some framework from the life of the Belle of Amherst:

* In April 1862, Dickinson read an article in “The Atlantic” by editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson offering advice to potential contributors.

* That month, Dickinson wrote to him, enclosed four poems, and asked “Are you too deeply occupied to say if my Verse is alive?”

* Higginson, intrigued by what he had read, wrote back, and offered Dickinson some advice concerning her poetry.

* Dickinson replied and thanked him for “the surgery” (i.e., his criticisms): “It was not so painful as I supposed.” She also answered questions posed by Higginson, and for one query she responded with this: “You asked how old I was? I made no verse-but one or two-until this winter - Sir.”

Sooo…is Dickinson, who was 32 years old at the time, saying that her life began that winter – at the time she “made” her verse – that’s when she began living? There is no “past” leading up to that moment?

If that supposition is viable, then perhaps the boy “with no past” has just discovered his passion – and whatever that may be, his “life” begins now, at the onset of this pursuit. The boy’s glasses add emphasis to the fact that his calling has come into clearer focus. From this – experienced here – let months dissolve in further months and years exhale in years; they boy’s celebrated days, his forever, begins – now.

Alas, dear reader, in my other interpretation, I can also read pessimism into the title of the painting related to discussions of blatant bigotry of narrow-minded maggots and the so-called Trump “administration” shared in my two most recent posts, HERE and HERE

Does the boy have no past because our country continues to dismantle, dishonor, and discredit Black history? Instead of illuminating a bright future, do his glasses magnify the injury and insult of injustice?

I prefer my first interpretation, but like an optical illusion, I can also see the alternative. It’s like a contranym, a word with opposite meanings – like “left,” which can mean “to have departed” or “to remain” – and lo and behold, dear reader, that thought brings me to the second of the two paintings shared herein, “Planes, Rockets, and the Spaces in Between.”

Of this painting, Sherald said, “What I hope people carry with them after seeing this painting is that feeling, that in the spaces between what’s real and what’s possible, something new can emerge. A world that feels both familiar and newly invented.” However, once again, I can view this painting in both optimistic and pessimistic light. Are the two individuals on the canvas witnessing what is possible? Or are they being left behind?

Once again, I prefer my first interpretation; however, I see what is happening in the now and here of our society. Is it, in some way, suggested in this painting? Your thoughts?

I'll leave it at that for now, and return to the sweet mystery of life. And what, pray tell, is the secret of it all?

For 'tis love, and love alone, the world is seeking;
And 'tis love, and love alone, that can repay!
'Tis the answer, 'tis the end and all of living,
For it is love a lone that rules for aye!

Yes, 'tis love. See -- I told you you knew the answer! 'Tis love, indeed -- and so for both paintings, I'll regard them with rosy optimism.

BONUS POEM:

At the start of this post, I quoted Carol Rumens' lines on Dickinson being able to transport readers via "the cosmos in microcosm," and her comments accompanied a "Poem of the Week" in The Guardian back in October 2010, HERE -- and what a poem it is!

I AM BLOWN AWAY by the opening image -- the mystery presented by a jar of water seen as a neighbor from "another world" -- deep from the abyss.

Rumens says, "It's a strange poem, 'floorless,' in a sense, and perhaps not flawless. The well appears to be a real one, not a metaphysical source of spiritual refreshment, but Dickinson's first stroke in the poem is to defamiliarise it, transform it into a kind of black hole."

Even so, amid ghostly and haunted imagery, the grass and sedge stand at the edge and show now signs of timidity. The speaker in the poem wonders, how can they "stand so close and look so bold / At what is awe to me." Am I being hyperbolic if I liken this to the idea of museum goers staring in awe before a painting of mystery and wonder?

Yesterday Is Poetry

3/29/2026

In yesterday’s post on Amy Sherald’s “As American as Apple Pie" (HERE), I shared examples of blatant Trump and maggot racism – including info related to the National Park Service removal of Black history markers near the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia because of Trump’s order entitled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” Another very recent example of Trump administration bigotry surfaced a few days ago in this story from the New York Times:

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is blocking the promotion of four Army officers to be one-star generals, a highly unusual move that has prompted some senior military officials to question whether the officers are being singled out because of their race or gender.

Two of the officers targeted by Mr. Hegseth are Black and two are women on a promotion list that consists of about three dozen officers, most of whom are white men, senior military officials said.”

The stories just keep on coming and coming and coming. Still, Trump always describes himself as the "least racist person in the world" and his followers – well, they just bleat like fluffy white sheep – baa baa baa. Have the sheep been fleeced? Or are they fully aware – and they just buy into and celebrate their shepherd’s ways of dismantling, dishonoring, and discrediting Black history?

Baa, baa, white sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir, two terms full.
One for the present
And what is coming next,
And one for our country’s past
To whitewash all the text.

I suppose I could veer off in many directions, but let me exit here on an off-ramp to ART:

Seeing one’s identity reflected in history, literature, and art fosters self-worth, validation, and a sense of belonging – particularly for marginalized and oppressed communities. It validates lived experiences, builds community connections, and preserves cultural heritage for future generations. Recognizing oneself in these spaces reduces isolation and reinforces, "I am here, and I exist.”

In exploring this topic, I found lot of info related to artists who, through their work, challenge historical narratives and bring overlooked, marginalized identities into spaces of power and recognition. One article if found, HERE, discussed Frida Kahlo and Kehinde Wiley – and, of course, I’ve highlighted a couple of paintings by Sherald where she challenges the narrative of our country’s story by tweaking iconic images from history.

“Trans Forming Liberty”: “’Trans Forming Liberty’ challenges who we allow to embody our national symbols – and who we erase,” said Sherald in an article form "The New Yorker."

“For Love, and For Country”: “There’s a long history of censorship and erasure that’s weighed down the gay kiss, and it’s often excluded from view,” said Sherald in a video call with CNN. “I think we’re living in a moment now where the deployment of a kiss — and specifically a gay kiss — could be used as a juggernaut.” (info HERE)

Another such painting is “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it”: The painting is a re-imagination of an iconic American photograph called “Lunch Atop a Skyscraper,” a 1932 photo attributed to Charles Clyde Ebbets of ironworkers having lunch “midair.”

In this case, the iconic scene is reimagined with a single figure. In a description of the painting, HERE, Sherald reports, “He’s sitting pensively with his hand relaxed near his knee, ready to engage you.”

What would you ask him? What would he say?

For me, the solitary Black figure called to mind a work by Langston Hughes entitled “I, Too”:

About the exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Sherald said, “American Sublime is a salve. It’s a call to remember our shared humanity and an insistence on being seen”; specifically about “Trans Forming Liberty,” she added, “It demands a fuller vision of freedom, one that includes the dignity of all bodies, all identities. Liberty isn’t fixed. She transforms, and so must we. This portrait is a confrontation with that truth.” But that truth is difficult for maggots to face. They beseech Trump to pull the white wool over their eyes.

I’ve heard of “Mad Cow Disease,” but we seem to be witnessing a break out of “Mad Sheep Disease,” with our government actively pursuing coordinated strategies to whitewash Black history by censoring museum exhibits and public land narratives and by creating initiatives to promote "patriotic (i.e., white-based) education" that downplays the role of racism in US history.

Additionally, there are daily attacks on the transgender and broader LGBTQ+ communities. On his first day, Trump signed an order defining sex as a binary "male" or "female" at birth, and with one stroke of a pen he attempted to stamp transgender and nonbinary individuals out of existence. There are now healthcare restrictions, a military ban, passport markers, restrictive education policies, and censorship (for example, federal agencies have been ordered to remove the terms "gender" and "transgender" from websites and have scrubbed data related to HIV research and LGBTQ+ youth health). This past March, U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes blocked the Trump administration's ban on transgender people serving in the military, describing the policy as "soaked in animus.” Later, the Supreme Court allowed aspects of the ban to proceed.

This evil and hatred is deeply rooted in these loathsome beings, and I wonder where and how this will all proceed? I mean, what happens over time when the “don’t tread on me” crowd fully embraces Fascist beliefs, radical Christian nationalism and unbridled bigotry and treads all over the rest of us?

Hmm…that calls to mind another poem by Langston Hughes:

Have you ever wondered why Hughes named this poem “Harlem”?

The poem was originally titled “A Dream Deferred,” but Hughes changed it to “Harlem,” the historically Black neighborhood in New York City – and the epicenter during the Harlem Renaissance of Black dreams and culture. The title “Harlem” highlights also the frustration of post-WWII black residents facing racial injustice, mirroring the stagnation of "deferred" hopes.

Following the 1920s "Renaissance," a time of immense cultural hope, the 1950s brought increased economic stagnation, racism, and housing issues for many black residents in that area and around the country. The poem warns that if dreams are continually delayed through social inequities, the growing frustration in places like Harlem – and elsewhere – could lead to social upheaval.

Let me repeat something here that I shared yesterday, a post I saw on Threads:

“MAGA isn’t drawn to Trump because he’s smart or competent. They’re drawn to him because he tells uneducated, insecure, angry people that their stupidity and ignorance is actually strength. He gives them a script where nothing is ever their fault. Blame immigrants. Blame ‘elites.’ Blame Democrats, blame anyone except the person in the mirror. He turns racism and sexism into a political identity. He makes being uninformed feel heroic. And MAGA eats it up because it saves them from having to grow, learn, or change. They don’t want leadership. They want validation for being ignorant. And Trump gives it to them every single day.”

These people want to erect monuments to him. HE wants to erect monuments to him. He's planning for a gold statue of him to tower above a hole at a golf course. Can you imagine -- a monument of gold dedicated to the man who has fueled the national debt and who has bankrupted our country (from "Fortune" magazine on March 21, 2026: "The Treasury just declared the U.S. insolvent. The media missed it").

I wrote a poem about him based on one by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Mine is below on the left. Shelley's original is on the right.

Now look how far down the page I am, and I have yet to make a connection to Emily Dickinson. I searched the Dickinson archive for any use of the word "monument," but no -- she never used the word "monument" in any of her poems. In the third series of the initial posthumous volumes of her poems, editor Mabel Loomis Todd provided a title "The Monument" to a poem about a gravestone, "She laid her docile Crescent down."

Next, I checked for the word "history," and I found this:

While the poem does not specifically address themes found herein -- the whitewashing of American history, the inclusion of all communities in our nation's narrative, expanding (or diminishing) the underpinnings for individual's dreams -- I rather liked the third line, "Yesterday is Poetry." I wonder how, in today's political climate, we are bracing the necessary supports for people's dreams.

When time flutters away -- as it always does -- will the youth and dreamers of today look back and be able to say, "Yesterday is Poetry"?

Until the Fight Is Done

3/28/2026

I’ve been ruminating on “Amy Sherald: American Sublime,” a retrospective of artist Amy Sherald’s portraiture at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and in my posts, I’ve been making connections of selected paintings to poems by Emily Dickinson. This is my eighth post in as many days, and in the previous seven, I started with a painting (or paintings) and then moved on to analogous works by the poet.

Today is different. I’m starting with a poem first, and then moving on (surely but slowly) to the painting at hand. The opening poem is an unusual one in that the subject is more than a bit enigmatic:

Dickinson used the word “Mine” six times: Mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine! Could she have been any more emphatic?

This technique, the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines to add emphasis, is “anaphora.” It’s often used in speeches (think Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream”), literature (think the opening to “A Tale of Two Cities), and poetry (think the poem I just shared) to make key ideas more memorable and – as I just noted -- emphatic.

So what is it exactly that the speaker in this poem claims so vehemently is theirs?

Well, in one interpretation of the poem, Elizabeth Phillips, in Emily Dickinson: Personae and Performance (1988), argued that the poem gives voice to Hester Prynne, the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Phillips suggests that Dickinson assumed the persona of Prynne, who, having accepted the hardships and consequences of her love, refuses to acknowledge guilt. Phillips connects the poem's references to a "scarlet prison" (and similar imagery in the context of the interpretation) to the actual scarlet letter 'A' that Hester is forced to wear.

However, others see these lines as a universal assertion of the sovereignty of one's own soul (a notion more aligned with the poems and paintings I covered yesterday and the day before). In one blog I came across about this poem, a person commented, “I can see her thumping her chest and proclaiming her sovereignty. This poem is akin to the masculine public brag, but spoken to the mirror of silence.” That idea of the speaker in front of a mirror called to mind Lucille Clifton’s poem “what the mirror said,” highlighted in yesterday’s post. Another interpretation I read likened the tone of the poem to Maya Angelou’s defiant “Still I Rise.”

Dickinson’s lesser-known third cousin, twice removed (at her request), Emmett Lee Dickinson penned a very similar poem. It, too, uses anaphora to great effect; however, in this case, the speaker seems not to be Hester Prynne but – possibly – Donald Trump?

This poem effectively encapsulates many of Trump’s failings, flaws, and faults – including the intense and inveterate racist beliefs at the core of his being. Related to his blatant bigotry, I saw this message in a social media post just yesterday:

“MAGA isn’t drawn to Trump because he’s smart or competent. They’re drawn to him because he tells uneducated, insecure, angry people that their stupidity and ignorance is actually strength. He gives them a script where nothing is ever their fault. Blame immigrants. Blame ‘elites.’ Blame Democrats, blame anyone except the person in the mirror (there’s that mirror motif again). He turns racism and sexism into a political identity. He makes being uninformed feel heroic. And MAGA eats it up because it saves them from having to grow, learn, or change. They don’t want leadership. They want validation for being ignorant. And Trump gives it to them every single day.”

In mulling over the racist views Trump validates in his followers, a few examples popped to the top of my head:

* When Disney announced that Halle Bailey was to play Ariel in a live-action version of “The Little Mermaid,” maggots freaked out and spewed bigoted hatred online with hashtags #NotMyAriel and #NotMyMermaid.

* Maggots RAGED when an ad for a Christmas movie showed a Black man wearing a Santa Hat.

* Maggots freaked out when a Super Bowl pre-game ceremony included a performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” ad referred to as the Black national anthem.

* There was a major maggot meltdown when Tom Hanks appeared in a red Trump hat in a Saturday Night Live sketch because they felt the show portrayed them as racists – yet they cheer on the so-called Trump administration (an arm of the Trump Family Crime Syndicate) when he removes references to Black history from national parks and monuments.

Below: The National Park service dismantled an exhibit that commemorated the enslaved people who lived and worked at George Washington's home when he lived in Philadelphia. The removal was tied to a March 2025 executive order signed by Trump entitled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History."

“So,” you ask, “what does all of this have to do with Amy Sherald’s show, ‘American Sublime’?”

“Well,” I answer, “today’s featured painting is ‘As American as Apple Pie.’”

On various sites, I’ve seen this painting described thusly: “It redefines ‘Americana’ and traditional, exclusive American identity by centering Black joy, leisure, and contemporary style in a composition inspired by Grant Wood's ‘American Gothic.’”

What jumps out at me in that statement is the idea that the painting has in some way “REDEFINED” American identify because the subjects are Black. Seriously? Isn’t that sad – that White America can’t accept a Black Ariel, a Black Santa, a Black hymn, a happy Black couple? Look where we are as a country that Amy Sherald as to paint a conservatively dressed Black man leaning on a Camaro next to a Black woman in a pink Barbie t-shirt holding a flamingo sippy cup -- AND SHE HAD TO TELL US IN THE TITLE THAT THEY ARE AS AMERICAN AS APPLE PIE. I mean -- she even threw in a white picket fence and -- I suppose -- 2.5 kids inside the house doing their homework!

Let’s pause here for a minute and try this experiment: Read the preamble to the US Constitution and decide upon the single most important word in the passage:

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

There are thirty-nine different words out of fifty-two in total. Which word did you select as the most important? Which word is most crucial? Which word stands out foremost in your mind?

Before I reveal the correct answer, let me pass on a disturbing anecdote related to the Preamble and deeply rooted Trump/maggot racism: Just the other day I saw an Instagram Reels – I can’t recall who was in it – just that individuals were debating the meaning of these introductory words to our constitution. I found it INCREDULOUS – though not surprising – that the individual representing the racist views of the narrow-minded maggot-world interpreted the words “to ourselves and our Posterity” to mean “for White people only” – and the other maggot malcontents in attendance cheered on. his bigoted blathering. Absolutely sickening.

Now back to my challenge. The correct response for the most important word in the Preamble to the US Constitution:

WE

The Inlets of the Mind

3/27/2026

O Frabjous day! My inspired impressions continue this very morn – that is, my comments inspired by the portraiture of Amy Sherald coupled with the profundity of Emily Dickinson! In uffish thought I stand, my beamish reader, with vorpal keyboard in hand – so beware the artsy-talky, my friend, as I go galumphing on!

Today’s post is more than most special, too, for it includes not one, but four of Sherald’s paintings. Plus, as an added bonus beyond and above the words of Dickinson, I will incorporate a smattering if not a scattering of perspicacious perspectives from the brainy badinage of E. E. Cummings.

Shall we begin?

The quartet of paintings is shown below (click the images to enlarge), and one commonality each shares is an intriguing title. Nothing mundane among them, like “Woman in Hat” or “Man in Bowtie.” No, the monikers are much more – mesmerizing (I needed one more “m” word, and “mesmerizing” was the best I could do).

The titles (from left to right) are as follows:

1. Listen, you wonder. You a city of a woman. You got a geography of your own (taken from Lucille Clifton’s poem “what the mirror said," shown at the right -- click the image to enlarge).

2. The Rabbit in the Hat

3. It Made Sense . . . Mostly in Her Mind (a short discussion of this painting from the Whitney Museum is HERE).

4. Freeing herself was one thing, taking ownership of that freed self was another (taken from Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”; also, the wall placard at the BMA included this information: ”Sherald’s subject embodies that transition, standing in the space between freedom and the full acceptance of it.”)

The paintings, the titles, and that fourth work’s description all called to mind several quotations from E. E. Cummings to which I alluded earlier:

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”

“To be nobody-but-yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

And – playing off the theme from yesterday’s post (HERE):

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

I gathered all of this – yesterday’s and today’s posts, the corresponding paintings, Sherald's various clever – and meaningful – titles, the quotes from Cummings, the poems by Whyte (yesterday) and Clifton (today) – and I lobbed it all into my Mix-A-Lot-Blend-O-Matic Dickinson word processor and came up with this, "The Soul unto Itself":

Emily, I (and my soul) stand in AWE! Just eight lines and the work encapsulates a fundamental truth about human nature – and so Jung at heart! Jung, you may recall, focused his philosophy on achieving "individuation,” the lifelong process of integrating conscious and unconscious parts of the mind to become a whole, authentic self.

On a blog that offered an analysis of “The Soul unto itself,” I saw this whimsical bit of repartee: “Emily Dickinson could have written Carl Jung's books but Carl Jung could've never written Emily Dickinson’s poems.”

And here is the best part
You have a head start
If you are among the very
Jung at heart!

BONUS POEM BY DICKINSON ("taking ownership of that freed self"):

Me, change! Me, alter!
Then I will, when on the
Everlasting Hill
A Smaller Purple grows –
At sunset, or a lesser glow
Flickers upon Cordillera –
At Day's superior close!

Mutual Monarch

3/26/2026

Last July, my wife and I were to have seen Orville Peck as the Emcee in Cabaret in New York. However, on the day of the performance, I received an urgent text message. Peck was unable to perform that day, and we had to decide within the hour if we’d still attend the performance with a different performer in the role or return our tickets for a refund. To be honest, we were not familiar with Peck at that time, so his appearance in or absence from the show didn’t make any difference to us, so we saw the show and thoroughly enjoyed it. By the way, Peck’s replacement was Marty Lauter, a drag performer known as “Marcia Marcia Marcia” who competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Concerning Peck, though check out the photograph at the right along with a snippet of info I found in an article from the New Yorker entitled “Orville Peck, the Masked Man Our Yee-haw Moment Deserves”:

“What we officially know: Peck is Canadian, gay, a transplant from punk music. Many of the shibboleths of country gatekeeping were being obliterated—and good riddance.”

LET’S BOIL THAT CABBAGE DOWN: Shibboleth: “a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important.” (LOL – I freely admit – although I used context clues to figure out the meaning, – I looked up the definition anyway.)

Now to the photo at hand: stylistically with the individual figure and the minimalist background, it reminds me of a Sherald-esque portrait. Compare it to the painting below by Sherald. If one were to draw a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two, I suspect there’d be quite a number of details in the overlapped area. Shibboleths subjugated!

And the title of the painting?

Well, the subtitle is “All American,” and Sherald could have left it at that. However, the full title is “What’s precious inside of him does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.” With one alteration of a pronoun, the title comes from the last stanza of the poem “The Winter of Listening” by David Whyte.

Whyte is an Anglo-Irish poet who has said that all of his poetry and philosophy are based on "the conversational nature of reality.” His personal website states that he is a “poet, philosopher, speaker”:

“Behind each of these approaches lies a very physical attempt to give voice to the wellsprings of human identity, human striving and, most difficult of all, the possibilities for human happiness.”

LET’S BOIL THAT CABBAGE DOWN: Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (Fits with the painting perfectly, no?)

The quote from the poem – and the title of the painting – emphasizes that profound, inner truths –or the "precious" essence of an individual – are often obscured or diminished when the logical mind attempts to over-analyze or define them. They (the quote and title) are a declaration of authenticity through self-acceptance. They emphasize embracing one’s true nature and refusing to live in a state of self-denial or self-betrayal.

LET’S BOIL THAT CABBAGE DOWN: A succinct affirmation of this conviction comes from noneother than Popeye the Sailor Man: “I yam what I yam.”

In thinking about some connection to Dickinson with this ideology of self-acceptance, self-love, and self-respect, I first landed on a quote from the poet with which I am familiar: “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”

Of course, if any poet knew herself intimately and deeply, it was Emily Dickinson – and what a wonderful quote, no? It illuminates the idea of her innermost soul searching for self-discovery – uncovering her true values, passions, and desires – all leading to a more authentic and purposeful life. What a transformative journey for Dickinson it must have been – “looking for herself” with metaphoric lanterns to overcome any self-doubt.

Well…are you sitting down? That’s the true gist of the quote.

No, this line about the lanterns “searching for myself” is from a letter to Elizabeth Holland shortly after her family moved from their home on North Pleasant Street in Amherst back to the Homestead on Main Street. Here’s a portion of what Dickinson wrote:

“I cannot tell you how we moved. I had rather not remember. I believe my ‘effects’ were brought in a bandbox, and the ‘deathless me,’ on foot, not many moments after. I took at the time a memorandum of my several senses, and also of my hat and coat, and my best shoes - but it was lost in the melee, and I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.

Such wits as I reserved, are so badly shattered that repair is useless - and still I can't help laughing at my own catastrophe. I supposed we were going to make a ‘transit,’ as heavenly bodies did - but we came budget by budget, as our fellows do, till we fulfilled the pantomime contained in the word ‘moved.’ It is a kind of gone-to-Kansas feeling, and if I sat in a long wagon, with my family tied behind, I should suppose without doubt I was a party of emigrants!

They say that ‘home is where the heart is.’ I think it is where the house is, and the adjacent buildings.”

So this wonderful quote about soul-searching – “I am out with lanterns, looking for myself” – was not about soul-searching at all. It was about the chaos and confusion of trying to locate one's personal belongings in the “melee” of a pain-in-the-ass experience moving.

Fear not, though, dear reader – I have landed upon a very suitable verse by Dickinson’s to connect to Sherald’s painting – and it’s quite profound:

LET’S BOIL THAT CABBAGE DOWN: "L'etat, c'est moi.” More specifically, “L'état (D'ÊTRE) c’est moi.”

Subjugate consciousness not, my King or Queen. Banish not you from yourself!. Your corporeal being is “mutual monarch” to your inner spirit Abdication is needless when what’s precious inside does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence.

For further reading, a thoughtful analysis of the poem is HERE. Also, more on the painting from Ekow Eshun of the Whitney Museum is HERE.

And now for the grand finale -- the showstopper ending -- or, as they say in the artworld -- the final stoke:

Reign and shine!

A Nearness to Tremendousness

3/25/2026

My recent posts have been about the Baltimore Museum of Art’s exhibit “Amy Sherald: American Sublime.” I concluded yesterday’s account (HERE) with a rather impressive – well, at least a fitting – boating motif (playing off Dickinson’s “Wild Nights – Wild Nights!): “For now, let me navigate back to ‘Amy Sherald: American Sublime’ and drop anchor. I'll set sail again tomorrow and see where the winds take me. Well -- I know where they're going to take me. Up.”

Before soaring upward today, though, let me share two bits of nugatory information: First, as a synonym for “impressive” (which I just used in the paragraph above), the OED included “amazeballs” as a choice. Hmm…I’m not sure I’d classify my boating motif as “amazeballs." but it was rather impressive, no? Second, just yesterday – soon after I proclaimed in my post that Baltimore’s Cafe Gia has the world’s best cannoli – I learned that “cannoli” is plural for the singular “connolo” – not “cannolis” or “cannolies.” Who knew?

Okay, time to gather my thoughts like a bunch of balloons: My focus today is “Pilgrimage of the Chameleon,” a portrait which includes a bouquet of balloons – hence, my earlier mention of a skyward projection – and though I’ve been connecting Sherald’s paintings to various poems by Dickinson, let me start today with a selection in contrast.

[NOTE: In an alternate version, line 4 reads, "Don't tell! They'd advertise -- you know!"]

One of Dickinson’s most famous poems begins “I’m Nobody! Who are you? / Are you – Nobody – too?” – and, of course, Dickinson herself shunned publication of her work (“Publication is the auction of the mind,” she wrote), and she withdrew from society, becoming a recluse in her own town and in her own home. Conversely, most of Sherald’s subjects make direct eye contact with museum-goers as if to say, “I’m Somebody! Who are you?”

Do you find that they are looking at you – or are they looking forward, say, to their horizons (horizons seem an important and frequent theme with Sherald)? Or are they looking ahead? Are looking “forward” and looking “ahead” the same thing (a la the synonyms I mentioned above, “impressive” and “amazeballs”)?

Consider this – and yes, I’m being a bit chucklesome here – are these statements the same:

“Azariah is looking ahead to his colonoscopy.”

“Azariah is looking forward to his colonoscopy.”

So back to those individuals and those gazes. With her portraits, Sherald stipulates that museums install them at eye level to enhance the connection between the viewer and the subject. Her intent is to ensure her subjects are "actively present," allowing them to be "gazed upon but also gaze back.” In this way, Sherald facilitates a direct interaction with the viewer, aiming to create a moment focused on the individual's humanity. Additionally, Sherald’s portraits often feature subjects set against flat, monochromatic, or minimalist backgrounds; as a result, they are not defined by struggle or surroundings.
From the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (HERE):

“In all her paintings, the figure’s facial expression—particularly the gaze—is critical to establishing a sense of agency for each subject. Sherald says in a Smithsonian Magazine interview, ‘My portraits are quiet, but they’re not passive. When you consider the African American historical narrative and its ties to the gaze, a glance could result in punishment by lynching. I wanted my sitters to look out and meet your gaze, instead of being gazed upon. Essentially, that’s the beginning of selfhood, a consideration of self which is not reactionary to your environment.’”

In “Pilgrimage of the Chameleon,” there is a handful of balloons. Are they a celebratory detail? Something whimsical? An offering?

“Pilgrimage” implies a journey. “Chameleon” suggests an ability to change color. The balloons are multicolored. The individual is wearing a coat, as if on a journey. Has he been changing color in some experience of synesthesia (metaphorically speaking)?

What came to mind for me was Dickinson’s “As from the earth the light Balloon”:

Wow! What an ending! This poem, in turn, called to mind Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “Sympathy.”

In Dunbar’s work, the bird sings (and beats his wing) for he has been defrauded of his release – as the balloon in Dickinson’s poem.

Has the pilgrim in Sherald’s painting gathered balloons in hopes of ascension to greater heights? Has he been defrauded of his song?

Although Dickinson never used the word “pilgrimage” in any poem, she did use “pilgrim” in five poems. In one of those five, “Will there really be a ‘Morning’?” the poet concludes with this:

Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Man from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called "Morning" lies!

I can see in the subject’s expression of Sherald’s “Pilgrimage” a similar longing – perhaps a search “where the place called ‘Morning’ lies” (whatever “morning” might symbolize).

Interestingly, in the opening stanza from another poem in which Dickinson used the word “balloon,” she stated this:

I would not paint – a picture –
I'd rather be the One
It's bright impossibility
To dwell – delicious – on –
And wonder how the fingers feel
Whose rare – celestial – stir –
Evokes so sweet a torment –
Such sumptuous – Despair –

I wouldn’t say that the expression of Sherald’s subject evokes torment or despair; however, he has the look of contentment, perhaps, of one who has overcome some obstacle or desperation.

In exploring this work, I found a very interesting interpretation at Phillips.com, and it mentions, “The balloons against a sky blue background serve as a natural symbol of uplift, implying the upward direction of the protagonist’s pilgrimage.” The analysis addresses thoroughly, too, the view of the subject as “chameleon” – linked to “process of assimilation” and “code-switching” – and how the “balloons express a sense of optimism.” The complete review is HERE.

What do you see in this painting? In his expression? In those balloons?

Silence Is All We Dread

3/24/2026

Shall we talk about the elephant in the room?

I’ve been writing daily posts about “Amy Sherald: American Sublime,” an exhibit I visited recently at the Baltimore Museum of Art, from the perspective of a Dickinson enthusiast. My intro post is HERE; post 2, my interpretation of Sherald’s “Ecclesia (Inheritance meets Horizons), is HERE; and yesterday' s installment, reaction of “Kingdom,” is HERE.

Today – it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room – in the lumbering form of Trump/GOP/Maggots who corrupt society with narrow, bigoted viewpoints they crave to impose on all others. Am I coming across too even-tempered by suppressing how I really feel?

I find it beyond hypocritical that the “don’t tread on me” fanatics who profess to put “America First” (and doesn’t that slogan have an interesting background?) seem hell-bent – and virulently gleeful – on treading on others they view as “vermin” (and where have we heard that term before?).

I mention this due to the fact that the National Portrait Gallery – one of the Smithsonian’s art museums – had planned to censor this exhibit during its scheduled run there. I covered this in my initial discussion about this show, and as I make connections to Dickinson's poetry in my daily posts about the exhibit, let me begin this write-up with a short poem I’ve shared more than a few times in the past. It’s not a work by Emily Dickinson, but one penned from the hand of Emmett Lee Dickinson, her third cousin, twice removed (at her request):

That Hate is all they have,
And all they have is Hate;
It's not okay, that hate should be
Just how you make us great.

[Just FYI: Emmett Lee’s poem inspired third-cousin Emily to write “That Love is all there is / Is all we know of Love / It is enough, the freight should be / Proportioned to the groove.”]

From what I have heard, the painting called into question by the Smithsonian is “Trans Forming Liberty” (Info HERE). However, since “For Love, and for Country” is also in the show (info HERE), I wonder if the Smithsonian – under the direction of the so-called Trump “administration” – would have allowed this painting? I assume that it, too, would have caused concern for insular, intolerant miniature-minded bigots.

Below left: Trans Forming Liberty Below right: For Love, and for Country

I explored news of this tempest-in-a-paint-can and found this:

In a letter to Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, which runs the Portrait Gallery. Sherald wrote, “I entered into this collaboration in good faith believing that the institution shared a commitment to presenting work that reflects the full, complex truth of American life. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the conditions no longer support the integrity of the work as conceived.’’

Sherald later reported that Bunch had proposed replacing the painting with a video of people reacting to the painting and discussing transgender issues, an idea she rejected because it would have included anti-trans views (and doesn’t the proposal just smack of Trump’s “good people on both sides” nonsense about neo-Nazis?).

“When I understood a video would replace the painting, I decided to cancel,” she said. “The video would have opened up for debate the value of trans visibility and I was opposed to that being a part of the ‘American Sublime’ narrative.”

A Smithsonian spokesman suggested Sherald had misunderstood Bunch’s proposal. “The video was to accompany the painting as a way to contextualize the piece,” the statement said. “It was not to replace Amy Sherald’s painting.”

In a second statement, the institution said, “While we understand Amy’s decision to withdraw her show from the National Portrait Gallery, we are disappointed that Smithsonian audiences will not have an opportunity to experience ‘American Sublime.’”

Baltimore is less than an hour from Washington, so no – the Smithsonian audience (including my and I) did not miss an opportunity to experience “American Sublime.” We just had to drive a little bit further – and to an area with the best crab cakes – AND – the world's best cannoli – so win-win!

At the left: Our favorite crabcakes at Jimmy's Famous Seafood -- AND -- the word's best cannoli from Cafe Gia in Baltimore's Little Italy.

In explaining her decision to withdraw from the exhibition, Sherald said, “I cannot in good conscience comply with a culture of censorship, especially when it targets vulnerable communities. At a time when transgender people are being legislated against, silenced, and endangered across our nation,” she added, “silence is not an option.”

My post on March 22, on “Ecclesia (Inheritance meets Horizons)” also referenced Sherald’s memory of first seeing Black representation in an artwork on a museum wall – at the Columbus Museum in Georgia. In a similar vein, can you imagine the impact on an LGBTQ+ youth seeing “Trans Forming Liberty” or “For Love, and For Country” prominently displayed at an exhibit at a major gallery? If you have read this far into this post but cannot grasp the significance of such an occasion, please click HERE.

Last October I was scrolling through Reels,, and I came across a New Yorker “Mini-Interview” with Ocean Vuong, HERE. He mentions the impact he felt when, as a gay teenager, he came across “a short little, little romantic poem by Robert Browning…and it had no gendered pronouns.” For the first time, he was able to envision his understanding of himself in a work of art deemed important enough to include in a published book.

At the time I encountered Vuong’s interview, I had just published a couple of posts on Emily Dickinson’s “My River runs to thee,” and I realized that her love poem, too, included no gender-specific pronouns – OHHHH…and it just popped into my head that Dickinson’s wildly passionate poem (pun intended), ‘Wild Nights – Wild Nights!” is also free of gender-specific pronouns. However, I won’t, at this time, drift (to further the boating motif) into the current of “Emily Dickinson’s sexuality” - although there is very telling “current” research from recent decades.

Below: Browning's "Meeting at Night," and Dickinson's "My River runs to Thee" and "Wild Nights -- Wild Nights!" (Click the images to enlarge.)

For now, let me navigate back to “Amy Sherald: American Sublime" and drop anchor. I'll set sail again tomorrow and see where the winds take me. Well -- I know where they're going to take me. Up.