Each month, TATE ETC. publishes new poetry by leading poets such as John Burnside, Moniza Alvi, Adam Thorpe, Alice Oswald and David Harsent who respond to works from the Tate Collection. Subscribe to the Poem of the Month RSS feed.
This July Pelé Cox presents her poem based on Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss, currently on display at Tate Modern.
The Kiss
(after Rodin)
Kiss kiss
Kiss kiss.
Eternity isn’t bliss!
Will we always be stuck like this?
You’re face, my lips, your happy wrist
frozen like a butterfly
where it hurts to twist and
where the white stone pins.
Will it only ever be this?
Isn’t a kiss supposed to end
And then begin?
Auguste Rodin
The Kiss 1901-4
Pelé Cox was born in London in 1971. She studied art history at Nottingham University and creative writing at the University of East Anglia, then spent three years as managing director of Spine Books. She is currently writing poetry in Kent, England.
Pelé Cox’s homage to Jake and Dinos Chapman's work appears in Issue 06 of TATE ETC.
Previous poems
October 2007 Will Eaves presents his poem Crater
September 2007 Francesca Beard presents her poem Portrait of A Young Child In Blue at Tate Britain
August 2007 Ilka Scobie presents her poem based on Hélio Oiticica’s Grand Nucleus
July 2007 Pelé Cox presents her poem based on Auguste Rodin’s The Kiss
June 2007 Jacob Polley presents his poem based on Nicholas Hilliard’s Queen Elizabeth I
May 2007 Penelope Shuttle presents her poem based on Barbara Hepworth’s Garden Sculpture (Model for Meridian)
April 2007: Lawrence Sail presents his poem based on Bridget Riley’s Metamorphosis
March 2007: Tishani Doshi presents her poem based on Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Woman
February 2007: Anne Rouse presents her poem based on Andreas Gursky's 99 Cent, 1999
January 2007: Moniza Alvi's poem on Samuel Palmer's Coming From Evening Church 1830
December 2006: David Harsent's
poem based on Jean Dubuffet’s Le Arbres de Fluides 1950,
and Susan Hiller’s After the Freud Museum 1991-96
November 2006: John Burnside's poem on John Nash's The Cornfield 1918
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