KAHLO & RIVERA - EXHIB REPORT & POEM

I was at the opening of the Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera exhibition at IMMA in Dublin on Tuesday night and I've written about it here at The Anti- Room. I've been a huge fan of Kahlo for years and have written about her in a number of poems, including the one below where she visits Ballinasloe (from my forthcoming collection with Salmon, The Juno Charm). An inspirational woman if ever there was one.

Frida Kahlo Visits Ballinasloe

Frida Kahlo likes to walk in colour,

but she is hard-pushed on Society Street.

We wander together up Sarsfield Road;

‘Where is all the yellow,’ she asks, ‘the red?’

Frida, in a floral dress and Mexican silver,

draws a tidings of magpies from the sky.

‘No parrots,’ she says, ‘no hibiscus?’

Clouds part, a triangle of blue pleases her.

Then she sees a scarlet Massey Ferguson,

yew berries spilled like beads on the footpath,

A woman in a crimson coat and man’s shoes,

a King Charles with a postcard colleen’s curls,

Tail-lights like alien eyes spinning to Ahascragh;

‘Viva la vida,’ says unflinching Frida, painter of pain.

She sings the reds of Sarsfield Road and they bleed

into the veins of the town, pulsing its grey.