Princess Of Kitsch Poem by gershon hepner

Princess Di, the saint of kitsch,
public dirty-washing rinser,
seemingly has found her niche,
threatening the House of Windsor,
as in tabloid megadoses
we read how un-chaste Diana
moonstruck loved beyond the swell,
and as lady of the manor
kitchen-sinked the citadel.

Jenny Uglow reviews Robert Hughes book on Goya in the NYT, November 23,2003:

Robert Hughes's account of Goya's life and art is dazzling, disturbing and intensely personal. A crisis in Hughes's own life, we learn, unblocked his long attempt to explore Goya's dark genius - a terrible car crash resulting in months of pain and operations, but also leading to a deep recognition: ''It may be that the writer who does not know fear, despair and pain cannot fully know Goya.''
In other ways, this is an autobiographical study. It begins in the author's youth, in an Australia where ''etchings'' meant the sub-Rubens soft porn of Norman Lindsay's prints hanging in bar-rooms and back parlors, as Hughes buys, almost by chance, Goya's print ''The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters, '' the man slumped at his desk while leering owls bat about his head. It returns too, to Hughes's Roman Catholic education: one of the things he thanks the master for is spurring him on the road to being an ex-Catholic. At every turn we hear the author's inimitable, rolling voice - witty, broad and keen as a knife. He tumbles Goya's world into ours with zestful, anachronistic allusions to tabloid headlines, topless bars, royal gossip or ''that saint of kitsch sentiment, Princess Di.''

11/26/03