The Mask - Elisabeth Horan

Frida Kahlo and her work has fascinated me since I first beheld one of her self portraits in a book. I then saw a film about her which motivated me to find out more.  I was fortunate enough to attend the 2005 exhibition at Tate Modern and stand before her powerful paintings in the flesh so to speak. The impact of that reality was far greater then ‘merely’ beholding the images in a book or postcard, of course. So it’s unsurprising when the prospect of reading a collections of poems inspired by Frida’s work was presented to me I snapped up the offer with both hands.

The Mask, taking its title from one of Frida’s many self portraits, is a collection of poems celebrating the art of Frida Kahlo offering an interpretation of her paintings through poems.  What shines through is the poet’s love and admiration for Frida and the sense of the many parallels between their lives. Frida painted numerous self portraits and in many ways poems are the poet’s self portraits, too. In this collection there is a fusion between the poems inspired by the paintings creating almost double self portraits!

I had the sense of this being a deeply personal and emotive suite of poems, exploring the pain of life; physical pain, emotional pain and mental pain. I somehow feel as if it is Frida herself speaking almost as a commentary to her paintings, and frequently peppered with Spanish? Mexican? Her frankness and openness were there as they are in her art but then I realised, too, that these were the words of a poet, powerful, direct. There is anger and frustration in the words but there is much love, too, and courage. I think that both Frida and Elisabeth Horan are brave women.

When I’m commenting on a poetry collection I usually cite my favourites and offer quotes from them but I found that impossible and almost irrelevant here. For I read them as a whole. Yes, each poem is separate as are Frida’s paintings but they comprise a cohesive unit, unfit for separation. Elisabeth Horan uses words and imagery as Frida used colour and composition. The end result is startling.

My thanks to Isabelle Kenyon at Fly on the Wall Press and The Broken Spine for a copy of this absorbing collection.