Cranach the Elder Gets Me To Chill Out
The High Priestess in Reverse
Ra Ebrahim
Ra Ebrahim is a writer and poetry editor of the online literary magazine, The Candid Review. Their recent work can be found in Memoir Mixtapes and Anti-Heroin Chic, among others. Still somehow on Twitter/Instagram @projectiondept. They are based in Singapore.
Why this Knocked Taylor Out:
The voice in Ra’s poetry feels really strong to me. There is this conversational tone happening on one level, but a deep engagement with meta and intertextuality on the other. Because of this I’m able to move through the poems at my own pace. The first time I read them pretty quickly because the tone allows for that, and then the second (third, fourth, etc…) I was able to slow down and catch some of the really amazing lines like in “Cranach…” where Ra writes “Like when you step on a snail after it rains and feel sorry for the rest of your life.” or in “High Priestess…” when they write “You know, when caterpillars emerge from their cocoons, the pain is astonishing,”
The engagement with ekphrasis here is working really well because Ra is able to paint pretty vivid pictures without us having to see the art. I’m someone who will always favor image over meaning and Ra is giving us BOTH (the generosity!!!!!)
Cranach the Elder Gets Me to Chill Out:
Where do I even start? This is a fascinating examination of mythic poetry within the context of an afterlife of torture. The poem lets you know that we’re in a painting in the first line, but that falls away for me as a reader pretty quickly and I’m just there. How are angels and torture able to exist within the same sentence, let alone afterlife?
The High Priestess in Reverse:
I mean this poem is a gut punch. One of the best paced endings I’ve seen in a while. Truly, dare I say it, a perfect poem. Centering the poem in the context of the High Priestess tarot card, the poem questions: are people punished when they try to evolve beyond their original state. And the answer seems to be: yes.
Interview:
Why did you choose Team Taylor for this poem?
I'd submitted before (having also read the little guidelines each of you put up!) so I knew there was a place where you and I converged, and I felt like these poems weren't holding back from that. Also am i allowed to say that we're twitter mutuals and you're awesome and the care and sincerity you bring to this are so valued?
How, if at all, do you see these two poems in conversation with each other?
Both of them are imagined conversations between me and a seemingly inert piece of art, and while I'd like to think both of them end up cancelling me out, I also kind of hope that they're ordinary insistences against that kind of frivolous punishment put up for no reason. Which I guess is me saying that they're both about commitment, in their own ways.
How did you go about revising each of these?
High Priestess actually didn't take that much revising on the page - I write in my head a lot! But with Cranach the Elder, it expanded and contracted so many times, I had to stop myself from bloating or starving it so I could get to what I was trying to actually say, unselfconsciously.