When David Starkey asked if I would contribute a poem to an anthology celebrating the work of Patricia Chidlaw, I immediately said yes, but choosing which painting to write about was hard. In fact, I misread his email and chose three of her paintings. It was easy to get carried away. I wrote three ekphrastic poems for the project. On closer look, and after realizing the original request said each poet could choose no more than three poems, my two poems in the anthology are after Chidlaw’s Red Shoes and Bird of Paradise.
I had a difficult time deciding because her paintings are so haunting. I couldn’t resist the painting titled Red Shoes, of a Flamenco dancer. I showed my poem to my dance teacher, and she at first thought the painting was a photograph. She asked who the woman was and if the poem was about someone I knew. This is the power of ekphrastic poetry.
Chidlaw comes from a military family and has lived all over the world. After attending UCSB in 1969, she decided to stay in Santa Barbara. Santa Barbara became her first serious subject. David Starkey says Chidlaw’s paintings evoke a noirish version of Southern California — one of loneliness, faded glamour, and mystery. “Blue Room,” the book’s title, comes from one of Chidlaw’s paintings and suggests not only her preferred palettes but also the prevailing mood of the paintings and poems.
A sampling of the Blue Room paintings opened to a packed audience at Sullivan Goss for First Thursday in September. The Blue Room anthology represents a second volume of poems inspired by Chidlaw. Poet Laureate Emerita Enid Osborn worked on a similar anthology, published by Sullivan Goss, titled Elsewhere, Paradise, when she was poet laureate six years ago.
On Wednesday, September 23, at 7 p.m., Sullivan Goss will host a reading of the Blue Room poets. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished copy of the anthology, Blue Room: Poetry by Santa Barbara Poets Inspired by Patricia Chidlaw’s Paintings, Gunpowder Press 2026.
Gunpowder Press also has a special event at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, featuring two Gunpowder Press poets, Crystal AC Salas and Catherine Abbey Hodges, accompanied by Rob Hodges on cello, on Saturday, September 12, from 3:30–4:30 p.m.