Analysis of "Large Reclining Nude" by Lois M. Harrod

 Analysis of "Large Reclining Nude" by Lois M. Harrod

Poem found here: http://www.versedaily.org/2021/largerecliningnude.shtml

This is an eckphrastic poem based on this painting:

"Pink Nude" by Henri Matisse

The first line comes in first person perspective presumably from the subject of the painting.  "I said to him I said why did you / make me so big,"  Note how the first lines from this perspective refers to the artist, directs towards the artist as though she is the driving the conversation of questioning the artist about forced perspective.

"why / you make the white bedspread / look like a black and white / tiled floor,"  The difference between a forced perspective and what is real.  From the subject's perspective, the art piece doesn't reflect reality just like how big the subject is."

"do you want people / to think I let you take me in the / kitchen."  The phrasing implies something more intimate with "take me."  But I think the language the speaker uses is purposefully vague the more the subject wants to point back to what was really happening.  

The speaker gets so practical to reality that she envisions how the painting could work, "there / just isn't enough room there to / jam me, the size of that body,".  Finally, the artist responds, "sometimes you / seem that big to me."  At first I thought these line akin to the Williams Carlos Williams Poem, "This is Just to Say" -- a tone of something sly and playful as though this is how envisions her.

And even if the subject seems a little dumbstruck and wants a more real painting, the poem ends from his perspective.  His voice smothers hers like the painting.