Update, 5.6.2014 I am a winner!
Dear Judy,
Congratulations! Because your entry was one of the most voted on, you are a winner of the Knopf “Poetry Month Portray Your Love of Poetry” contest. Please reply to this email with your confirmed mailing address, and you’ll receive your prize of new poetry books from Knopf in the next week. Thanks so much for participating! We hope you enjoyed Poetry Month, and we look forward to April 2015
I have entered another contest — you can vote for me on the Knopf Facebook page in the link below 🙂
PORTRAY YOUR LOVE OF POETRY CONTEST
This April, we invite poetry fans to submit a photo, drawing, or other visual representation of poems that inspire them. The contest will be held on the Knopf Facebook page. The five people whose submissions get the most votes at the end of April will each receive a package of new poetry books from Knopf. Feel free to choose more than one poem and submit up to one entry per day!
Here is my entry:
I painted this water color miniature in Florence Italy in 2003, framed with Italian art paper. It illustrates the poem, “Florence, Italy” by Watie W. Swanzy that describes the love and obsession of travelers to that beautiful place. I most certainly was one who experienced the “Stendahl or Florence Syndrome,” described as a psychosomatic disorder that causes rapid heartbeat, dizziness, fainting, confusion and even hallucinations when an individual is exposed to an experience of great personal significance, particularly viewing art.
Florence, Italy
Watie W. Swanzy
Oh, well I love thee, Florence! All thy towers
As seen from Colli’s height are nought to me
But bright minarets of enchanted bowers,
Truly love and beauty reign over thee.
Thy gentle people, whose mild, dark eyes beam
Every kindly on the stranger within
Thy gates, are lovers of beauty, and such
Sweet, child-like ways possess, fear not the truth
To speak. Thy love of innocent sport well
We know. Have we not seen thy flow’ry day
Of carnival, when the perfumed missiles fly,
Until, from St. Mineato’s height, sounds
The curfew that warns of approaching night.
Whatever of evil thy dukes have wrought
Is mended somewhat by their love of art;
For where they saw true genius struggling forth
They gave a helping hand, and so have left
Within thy walls treasures of ancient lore;
Along thy streets, on pedestal, in niche,
Or beneath the fountain’s fast-falling spray,
Monuments sublime. But the most I prize
Thy long-arched corridors, where Angelo
And Raphael do speak to us by saints
And angels, and Mary, mother of God,
Upon whose brow purity sits enthroned
So did those delineators old seek
True inspiration from the Holy Book.