Art Mistress

Abstract

Art Mistress Jena Woodhouse (bio) Her zoographic counterpartan elegant giraffe,she had an air of naturalhauteur concomitant with height; wore a Bond's men's singlet,purple-dyed, with enviableaplomb, along with outsizedsunglasses and Quant-bobbed hair (Vidal Sassoon). She was a paragonof pared-down style, original,looking lithe and bored while strikinglanguid poses of sang-froid at school Assembly, owlish lensesfiltering the light, concealingany signs of wakeful nights; stiflinga yawn as Mr Polkinghorne droned on. In class, she liked to sit en faceon the front desk, long legs crossed,whipping out her gold compactand gouaching expressive lips, fixing us with witch-green eyesabove the compact mirror's disc,gaze alighting on a student, Lloyd,who only fancied boys,as she intoned a mantrashe exhorted us to take to heart: "Never underestimatethe power of a woman!"before snapping the compact shut,instructing us in Schools of Art. [End Page 218] Modigliani's many modelshad her eyes and neck and looks:Jeanne Hébuterne and our Miss Coxappeared uncannily alike, although our Art Mistress was borntoo late to be a muse to M.—a girl who would aspire to paint,not sit instead for gifted men; became the mistress of her fateand graduated from the Slade.(Though later jettisoned her plans,to crew for a seafaring man …) [End Page 219] Jena Woodhouse Jena Woodhouse, as poet, translator, and editor, has produced eleven book and chapbook publications in various genres, including six poetry collections, most recently, News from the Village: Travels in Rural Greece (Picaro Poets, 2021). In recent years, she has been awarded creative residencies in Scotland, France, Greece, and Ireland, and her poems have been shortlisted three times for the Montreal International Poetry Prize. Copyright © 2020 Wayne State University Press