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The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo
From the first to the last page of The Embrace: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Poems, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda captures and evokes the spiritual richness and artistic quaking of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera and their complicated, love-torn lives. With sumptuous imagery, yet acute precision and detail, the book delves into the artistic, marital and physical struggles of the artists, detailing how Kahlo, who even as she was undergoing painful surgeries and engaging her work, anguished about her husband Diego Rivera’s famous infidelities. The Rivera poems are sometimes delicate, sometimes swarthy and muscular, representing the painter’s physical and imagistic largess, as well as his interaction with his beloved Kahlo — an endearing, nonchalant kiss. Kreiter-Foronda’s portrait of these artists explores work, lives, and their well-documented Titan-like dance in an authentic voice, giving life and breath to not only Kahlo’s surreal self-portraits, the tragic accident that became her artistic nexus, Diego’s “art for the people” stance, but also the stoic and defiant voices of the artists that emboldened first the Mexican people and subsequently, the world. With its kinetic energy and bold envisioning, The Embrace is a well-researched, supremely crafted and perfectly executed narrative “embrace.” ––Shonda Buchanan, author of Who’s Afraid of Black Indians?
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108 pages, Paperback
First published March 18, 2013
16 people want to read
About the author
Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda
15 books3 followersCarolyn Kreiter-Foronda served as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2006 to 2008. She holds a B.A. from the University of Mary Washington and M.Ed., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from George Mason University, where she received the first doctorate, an Outstanding Academic Achievement and Service Award, and a Letter of Recognition for Quality Research from the Virginia Educational Research Association for her dissertation, Gathering Light: A Poet’s Approach to Poetry Analysis. In 2007 both universities gave her the Alumna of the Year Award.
She has co-edited three anthologies and published nine books of poetry, including These Flecks of Color: New and Selected Poems and The Embrace, winner of the Art in Literature: The Mary Lynn Kotz Award. She is the recipient of a Council for Basic Education Fellowship, five Virginia Commission for the Arts grants, the Ellen Anderson Award, a Virginia Cultural Laureate Award, a Phoebe first-place award, a Spree first-place award, an Edgar Allan Poe Poetry Award, a Passages North contest award, multiple awards in Pen Women competitions, six Pushcart Prize nominations, and a resolution of appreciation from the Virginia Board of Education for her service as poet laureate.
Her poems appear throughout the United States and abroad in journals and anthologies, such as Prairie Schooner, Nimrod International Journal, Mid-American Review, Best of Literary Journals, Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, Poet Lore, Hispanic Culture Review, and World Poetry Yearbook 2015. Two of her poems are featured in art installations at Metro stations as part of the Washington Metropolitan Area, Art in Transit. She currently conducts art-inspired poetry workshops for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Statewide Partners Program. Dr. Kreiter-Foronda also works as an abstract colorist painter and has exhibited her artworks widely in galleries, libraries, and educational settings.
She has co-edited three anthologies and published nine books of poetry, including These Flecks of Color: New and Selected Poems and The Embrace, winner of the Art in Literature: The Mary Lynn Kotz Award. She is the recipient of a Council for Basic Education Fellowship, five Virginia Commission for the Arts grants, the Ellen Anderson Award, a Virginia Cultural Laureate Award, a Phoebe first-place award, a Spree first-place award, an Edgar Allan Poe Poetry Award, a Passages North contest award, multiple awards in Pen Women competitions, six Pushcart Prize nominations, and a resolution of appreciation from the Virginia Board of Education for her service as poet laureate.
Her poems appear throughout the United States and abroad in journals and anthologies, such as Prairie Schooner, Nimrod International Journal, Mid-American Review, Best of Literary Journals, Anthology of Magazine Verse & Yearbook of American Poetry, Poet Lore, Hispanic Culture Review, and World Poetry Yearbook 2015. Two of her poems are featured in art installations at Metro stations as part of the Washington Metropolitan Area, Art in Transit. She currently conducts art-inspired poetry workshops for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Statewide Partners Program. Dr. Kreiter-Foronda also works as an abstract colorist painter and has exhibited her artworks widely in galleries, libraries, and educational settings.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 31, 2014
Former Virginia Poet Laureate (2006-2008) Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda is best known for her award-winning poems, which have focused on such subjects as man’s place in nature, the wonderment of creativity, and acceptance of death. But Carolyn is a respected artist as well. When she first viewed the artwork of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Carolyn felt inspired to write a new series of poems that gradually evolved into her sixth book, The Embrace, in which she examines the work of two artists and their lives together. The Embrace is a fitting title, not just because the two artists were twice married to each other, but also due to the artwork featured in and on the book. The cover displays one of Frida’s paintings that is often referred to simply as “The Embrace,” and the first section of the book features a painting by Diego, which is also titled The Embrace (El abrazo).
As she began writing this book, Carolyn poems focused on Frida, with tones that alternated between the vigor Frida displayed in her striking artwork and the depression she often felt in her personal life. The two women both had near-death experiences as youngsters (Carolyn’s due to a serious illness and Frida’s from a bus accident that left her disabled), so Carolyn could relate to Frida’s fascination with life and death as well as self-portraits that shone an unglamorous light on herself. In “Letter to Diego,” Carolyn writes, “I remember hearing / voices, a handrail piercing my body, / the severed organs spilling / a communion of blood. You, Diego, / are my other tragedy. I would tear you, / piece by piece, from my heart, / but I have nearly lost my soul. / I can no longer bear loneliness, / your affairs, your lies. And yet— / my leg shorn from me like a lost ribbon, / my spine a withered branch—when I die, / I will fly back to you on gilt wings.”
When Carolyn took a research trip to Mexico, she made great discoveries that sent her in a new direction. She realized that the book must be as much about Diego as it was Frida. “I was amazed by the grandness of Diego’s murals,” she says. “I thought that Frida’s paintings would be the ones that would catch my eye and then hold my eye, and then the book would just revolve around her. But, oh no. Once I saw what Diego had to say about the indigenous people, about their festivals, about their work habits and about the difference between the upper class and the lower class, the whole book changed; everything changed.”
While Frida’s artwork tends to be directed inward at the self, Diego Rivera is best known for expansive murals that depict evocative scenes of Mexican life, with themes that tend toward matters of social conscience. He painted his murals on walls throughout Mexico and in several prominent American cities. Carolyn’s poem about Diego examine his artwork and tell the stories portrayed in the murals through the voices of the subjects in the paintings—indigenous people, blue collar workers, revolutionaries fighting for freedom—or through the voice of Diego himself.
Diego was also a womanizer. He had four wives during his life and one mistress who bore him a child. Carolyn lays this point out early in an epigraph to her poem “Wives” with a quotation from Diego: “I, unfortunately, was not a faithful husband. I was always encountering women too desirable to resist.”
As she delved into the conflicting nature of Frida and Diego’s relationship and their differing styles, Carolyn’s experimental nature came to the fore. She expressed their duality by crafting simultaneous poetry. To do this, she writes a left column of stanzas that appears in regular font and a right column of stanzas that is italicized. If you read only the standard font, you will get one impression from the poem; likewise if you read only the italicized portion. A third impression can be gleaned by reading them together, moving from standard-font line or stanza on the left to its italicized counterpart on the right.
The second section of the book opens with a famous self-portrait called The Two Fridas (Las dos Fridas), in which a glamorous version of Frida sits on a chair beside a peasant version while an umbilicus runs between them connecting their hearts. This duality of personality that Frida felt is captured and displayed in a series of seven poems that are presented in simultaneous style with each version of Frida providing one of the poem’s voices. Other poems in this section follow the same style, as show in “Frida Dialogues with Her Heart.” In this poem, the left column is the voice of her heart. The last seven lines of standard font appear as follows: “Let me back inside. Let me / sever the cords / holding your beloved apparel, / throw out the liquor, lovers / doleful cries. Do not / abandon me like an Aztecan child / sacrificed to the gods.” In its right-columned counterpart, we read the echoed rumination of a melancholic Frida: “Long into night / I drink brandy, / curse my sister for giving in / to his advances. / Heart. Oh, Heart. / Tear yourself free / so I can live again.” We can then go back and read the lines, skipping back and forth between then at each line break.
With beauty and precision, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda depicts the passion that ruled the lives of these two great artists and at times tore them apart. She brings their iconic works to life by speaking to us through the lyrical voices of the subjects in the paintings. This book not only evokes bygone days of old Mexico, it also serves as a gift to lovers of art. It is Carolyn’s literary embrace.
As she began writing this book, Carolyn poems focused on Frida, with tones that alternated between the vigor Frida displayed in her striking artwork and the depression she often felt in her personal life. The two women both had near-death experiences as youngsters (Carolyn’s due to a serious illness and Frida’s from a bus accident that left her disabled), so Carolyn could relate to Frida’s fascination with life and death as well as self-portraits that shone an unglamorous light on herself. In “Letter to Diego,” Carolyn writes, “I remember hearing / voices, a handrail piercing my body, / the severed organs spilling / a communion of blood. You, Diego, / are my other tragedy. I would tear you, / piece by piece, from my heart, / but I have nearly lost my soul. / I can no longer bear loneliness, / your affairs, your lies. And yet— / my leg shorn from me like a lost ribbon, / my spine a withered branch—when I die, / I will fly back to you on gilt wings.”
When Carolyn took a research trip to Mexico, she made great discoveries that sent her in a new direction. She realized that the book must be as much about Diego as it was Frida. “I was amazed by the grandness of Diego’s murals,” she says. “I thought that Frida’s paintings would be the ones that would catch my eye and then hold my eye, and then the book would just revolve around her. But, oh no. Once I saw what Diego had to say about the indigenous people, about their festivals, about their work habits and about the difference between the upper class and the lower class, the whole book changed; everything changed.”
While Frida’s artwork tends to be directed inward at the self, Diego Rivera is best known for expansive murals that depict evocative scenes of Mexican life, with themes that tend toward matters of social conscience. He painted his murals on walls throughout Mexico and in several prominent American cities. Carolyn’s poem about Diego examine his artwork and tell the stories portrayed in the murals through the voices of the subjects in the paintings—indigenous people, blue collar workers, revolutionaries fighting for freedom—or through the voice of Diego himself.
Diego was also a womanizer. He had four wives during his life and one mistress who bore him a child. Carolyn lays this point out early in an epigraph to her poem “Wives” with a quotation from Diego: “I, unfortunately, was not a faithful husband. I was always encountering women too desirable to resist.”
As she delved into the conflicting nature of Frida and Diego’s relationship and their differing styles, Carolyn’s experimental nature came to the fore. She expressed their duality by crafting simultaneous poetry. To do this, she writes a left column of stanzas that appears in regular font and a right column of stanzas that is italicized. If you read only the standard font, you will get one impression from the poem; likewise if you read only the italicized portion. A third impression can be gleaned by reading them together, moving from standard-font line or stanza on the left to its italicized counterpart on the right.
The second section of the book opens with a famous self-portrait called The Two Fridas (Las dos Fridas), in which a glamorous version of Frida sits on a chair beside a peasant version while an umbilicus runs between them connecting their hearts. This duality of personality that Frida felt is captured and displayed in a series of seven poems that are presented in simultaneous style with each version of Frida providing one of the poem’s voices. Other poems in this section follow the same style, as show in “Frida Dialogues with Her Heart.” In this poem, the left column is the voice of her heart. The last seven lines of standard font appear as follows: “Let me back inside. Let me / sever the cords / holding your beloved apparel, / throw out the liquor, lovers / doleful cries. Do not / abandon me like an Aztecan child / sacrificed to the gods.” In its right-columned counterpart, we read the echoed rumination of a melancholic Frida: “Long into night / I drink brandy, / curse my sister for giving in / to his advances. / Heart. Oh, Heart. / Tear yourself free / so I can live again.” We can then go back and read the lines, skipping back and forth between then at each line break.
With beauty and precision, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda depicts the passion that ruled the lives of these two great artists and at times tore them apart. She brings their iconic works to life by speaking to us through the lyrical voices of the subjects in the paintings. This book not only evokes bygone days of old Mexico, it also serves as a gift to lovers of art. It is Carolyn’s literary embrace.
September 4, 2013
Beautiful, artful, and lyrical. I especially enjoyed the poems in two voices that could be read three ways. That unique structure gave a depth and richness to the reading that I haven't encountered before. Each of those was like three beautiful poems in one.
June 30, 2019
"The Embrace" by Carolyn Kreiter Foronda imagines the voices of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera from the poet's reading of their letters and journals as well as her own imagination. Many of the selections are two poems interlaced so that you may read them separately or together as a third poem. While this device works more often than not, as in the "Two Fridas" poems, there are places with it stumbles such as in "Deer Running."
Overall, this collection is emotionally powerful without slipping too far into the maudlin. The language is generally fresh and eloquent. In a number of cases animals or inanimate objects are personified and given a speaking voice with mixed success. (I find it difficult to suspend disbelief in listening to a crematorium oven speaking.)
"The Embrace" sides with Frida Kahlo in this tortured relationship, a sympathy it is easy to agree with. The collection is powerful and beautiful especially when it gives Kahlo a living voice agin.
Overall, this collection is emotionally powerful without slipping too far into the maudlin. The language is generally fresh and eloquent. In a number of cases animals or inanimate objects are personified and given a speaking voice with mixed success. (I find it difficult to suspend disbelief in listening to a crematorium oven speaking.)
"The Embrace" sides with Frida Kahlo in this tortured relationship, a sympathy it is easy to agree with. The collection is powerful and beautiful especially when it gives Kahlo a living voice agin.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews