Still life with poem

With a tradition that can be traced to Pompeii, the genre of the still life or nature morte has most often been used since the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as a vehicle for symbolism and metaphor, objects serving as stand-ins for philosophical ideas, religious principles, or moralizing messages. In Still Life with Poem, poets were asked to create (or to imagine) their own still lifes and to write poems in response to these thoughtful arrangements of things. And although still life paintings are often viewed as unmoving, quiet works of art, this anthology presents a collection of energetic, urgent voices; these poems speak to current events, the making of art, the domestic, the past, the body, faith, the environment, and the losses we all face.