Tag Archives: painting poems

Jocelyn Merivale – a tribute to an inspiring artist

“It’s not just that Jocelyn was contrary, she loved a fight, and was a good sparring partner. It’s that she seemed to me the opposite of just about anybody else I ever met.” – John Merivale’s Eulogy for Jocelyn, 23 September 2014

I can’t tell you how stunned I was to receive this piece of treasure in the post the other day:

Jocelyn Merivale book, John Merivale

Jocelyn Merivale, as regular readers of this blog may know, was a painter and friend, whose fabulous work inspired some of my poems in Up in the Air.

I got to know Jocelyn through her husband, John, with whom I worked for several years in Wimbledon and Morden. She died in 2014, tragically young, but carried on working right up until the end.

John set about producing a book to collect all of the paintings, sketches, and sculptures produced by his lifelong partner. He worked with Matthew Hollow, an art photographer, Martin Holman, an art historian, and Brother, a brand design agency. It was a true labour of love, much of it carried out during the enforced solitude of the coronavirus lockdown.

And look at the result:

Garden at Night, Jocelyn Merivale artist

I had been so looking forward to seeing this book. And the icing on the cake was the use of several of my poems, produced after I visited an Open House exhibition of Jocelyn’s work in Merton.

Scroll down to see my poems and the paintings they relate to, as well as the painting Jocelyn did for my wife and me on our wedding day. (Click on the images of the poems to read them more easily).

Every Bird is Singing, Steve Griffin poem
Field of Birds, Jocelyn Merivale artist
The Sea, Steve Griffin poem
Lighthouse, Jocelyn Merivale artist
Dotty, Steve Griffin poem
Dotty, Jocelyn Merivale artist
Green Ghost Girl at No. 9, Steve Griffin poem
No.9, Jocelyn Merivale artist

And here’s the beautiful painting that Jocelyn produced for our wedding:

For Steve and Anna, Jocelyn Merivale artist

To buy a copy of the Jocelyn Merivale book (£45 plus P&P) please contact John Merivale: merivale@btinternet.com

To purchase a copy of my poetry book Up in the Air, click below:

Every Bird is Singing

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A while back, whilst posting about the influence of painting on my poetry, I mentioned the artist Jocelyn Merivale who died two years ago, far too young.

Below is a sequence of short poems I wrote after visiting an exhibition of Jocelyn’s held at her home in Merton. I’ve included a few photos of her paintings, although I’m afraid they’re not the exact same ones that inspired the poems – but they give a good flavour of her talent. I would put all her paintings up here, they’re fabulous.

And a small point of clarification – these titles and sub-titles are my own, not those of the paintings.

Every Bird is Singing

I watch the painting
with its thousand yellow birds
all edged in black

and only some time later notice
that all their beaks are open,

that every bird
is singing –

fieldbirds

Green Ghost Girl at No. 9

Who is this green limned girl
stood at No. 9’s red door?

Won’t they let her in? Are there
bundles of garlic
splashes of holy water
sprigs of wolfsbane round the frame?

Does some sudden memory
paralyse the will of the dead?

Or perhaps she rehearses her performance,
how with just the right moment and angle
she might make forever good her intent,

push her teetering target
over the edge
of a measureless chasm of fear.

Or maybe she just doesn’t have the power
to walk through.

After all there is only so much
the dead can do.

lighthouse

The Sea

is everywhere. We are made to think
of our edges, our rocks and shingle beaches
bee-sting Victorian lighthouses –
of hulls on tossed waters
whose fate is to break.

But the sea is also amongst us
dull green with algae host
sitting, seeping around buildings –

an urge to circumscription
we can entertain, or not.

venice

*

– This is my favourite
he tells me, it reminds me
of the girl I fell in love with.

A beautiful, everything girl
full of treetop song –

with splashes of red
falling down gold beside her

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*

And, found behind the portrait of the baby,
a mental hospital, rain, billowing trees
in iron-dark grey

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This poem features in my poetry collection Up in the Air, available here:

On Justice

On Justice

– portrait of Margareta van Eyck, Groeninge Museum, Bruges

Here I am
every bit as real
an image as you.
How come you
get to breathe?

Look at this mastery,
the skill applied here, and here,
the dab of light
on the flesh
at the corner of the eye –

How good are you?
What do you do so well?
Why is it oxygen burns
when it touches
the blood in your lungs?

First published in Other Poetry III.3