[the Writing of Kuypers]    [JanetKuypers.com]    [Bio]    [Poems]    [Prose]


video See YouTube video of Janet Kuypers reading her first set of poetry at her “UnreadBeach Poets feature 7/26/15 in Chicago (with John strumming on an acoustic guitar), including the poems Excuses to Ignore me, Photo Studio Packages, Grinning from Ear to Ear, Get His Product to Town, Really Do Drive like Madmen, Exposed Ankles, Pork Skins, Jet Puffed, Goblins on Top of the Bus, Fit Together Like That, Fake Face, Know what I know, Pistol Case, I have to Explain, and Jack, Charles, Michael (this video was filmed from a Canon Power Shot camera; on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr). #janetkuypers #janetkuyperspoetryshow
video See YouTube video
of Janet Kuypers reading her first set of poetry at her “UnreadBeach Poets feature 7/26/15 in Chicago (filmed from a Canon fs200, with John strumming on an acoustic guitar), including the poems Excuses to Ignore me, Photo Studio Packages, Grinning from Ear to Ear, Get His Product to Town, Really Do Drive like Madmen, Exposed Ankles, Pork Skins, Jet Puffed, Goblins on Top of the Bus, Fit Together Like That, Fake Face, Know what I know, Pistol Case, I have to Explain, and Jack, Charles, Michael.

I have to Explain

Try to explain an artist
when everyone else think he’s insane
well, try to explain him
when YOU have the knowledge
and THEY now a fraction of what you do

Christ, I think about artists I’ve known
who created, who never told me
what they meant

Why did you do that painting?
Why did you die
before explaining what you really meant for it?
It’s a dancing woman,
I have to explain to them,
you see, there’s her shoulder,
and her hip,
and the thish and arm
moving across the canvas

I have to explain this to them
and the thing is, that woman is me

that dancing woman is me
    the woman in motion
    the woman that never stops

and he finished that painting
the day before he died

and what does it get me
what does this knowledge get me
what does anything get me

I’m still without a painting
    that was of me, for me
and no one still understands



Copyright Janet Kuypers.
All rights reserved. No material
may be reprinted without express permission.


my hand to an anim of jkchair