Sleeping Muse Poem by gershon hepner

When shove comes to push
I pull for Brancusi,
whose muse when asleep
is more than skin-deep,
assuming a shape
more abstract than a grape,
and drier than wine.
That’s why I align
myself, subterranean,
with this great Romanian,
though anti-Semitic,
psychoanalytic,

Inspired by a 1993 work by Louise Bourgeois, “Arches of Hysteria” that I saw at an exhibition of her work at LA’s MOCA on January 22,2009. While that work inspired my poem “Guarantee of Sanity, ” it also reminded me of many Brancusis I have seen. I was writing poems prolifically during the exhibition, which made me think about Brancusi’s “Sleeping Muse” (1909–10) , which is at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC.



1/23/09