The Poppy of Georgia O'Keeffe
(by Janine Pommy Vega)

In the carmine extravagance 
the skirts of a Spanish dancer swirl 
flamenco rhythms, castanets 
exuberant dancer 
drumming her heels on a wooden floor 
staccato barks, deep intricate guitars 
the energy pulsing from the dark 
surrounds and enters 

The poppy is wide open 
her petals curve 
like the skirts of a mountain 
filled with the morning sun 
we climb 
and reaching the pinnacle shout 
like the flower
in strict discipline, in eloquent satori 
in the wild grace of black and red.

(from The Green Piano, David Godine Publishing, 2005)

Georgia O'Keeffe, Poppy, 1927, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida

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• O’Keeffe painted flowers before 1924, but she later enlarged their scale, so “even busy New Yorkers” would take time to look at them.
• In O’Keeffe’s era, women were often viewed in terms of their biology. A contemporary critic had once remarked that her flowers had “the air of self-portraits.”
• O'Keeffe's Poppy from 1927, more large and menacing than her previous flowers, might be seen as her response to critics who interpreted her previous work narrowly in terms of her sexuality / biology.
• O'Keeffe's husband and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz referred to this painting as “that wild red picture.”

        (adapted from http://mfastpete.org/obj/poppy/)