A poem inspired by Picasso

Mary's recent postings remind me of the important ways that poets are influenced by art.  I offer here the opening poem of my new collection (Red Has No Reason, Plain View Press, 2010) -- it came from my viewing of a sequence of several drawings by Picasso, works that progress from a carefully detailed ink drawing to a sketch of a few lines that, with extreme brevity, also gives us the bull.

     How Did It Come to This?     by JoAnne Growney


     Prints on exhibit walls—
     notions of a bull by Picasso,
     whose clear eye directed a deft hand.
     Careful likeness becomes surreal
     design then sketch
     and in the end
     a few fine lines.
     Poems also we make
     by erasing.