Listen to Ellen June Wright read “Peonies 1870” from Shō No. 5 (Summer 2025). This poem is after “Young Woman with Peonies” by Frédéric Bazille.
I was inspired to write about the images of black women in European art of the 1900s based on the work of Dr. Denise Murrell and her wonderful book Posing Modernity in which she investigates the lives of black women who sat for famous painters, the most notable of which would be Laure in the painting Olympia. I only planned to write a couple of pieces but they grew into a project of over twenty-five poems.
– Ellen June Wright
Ellen June Wright is an American writer with British and Caribbean roots. Her work has been published in Gulf Coast, Plume, Tar River, Missouri Review, Caribbean Writer, Obsidian, Verse Daily, North American Review and others. She’s a Cave Canem and Hurston/Wright alumna and has received Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominations. She also hosts a weekly poetry workshop for Black poets. To learn more about her work, visit ellenjunewright.com.
This poem appears in Shō No. 5 (Summer 2024).
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