Simulacra

Author: Rena Rosenwasser

Artist: Kate Delos

Publisher: Kelsey Street Press (1986)

This collaboration grew out of a poet's and a painter's mutual fascination with Roman portraiture, especially its departure from the Greek ideal in favor of universal human types. We recognize these figures as contemporary in expression, but also as Roman citizens. Delos's sure applications of line and color capture their individual characters, dress, and ornaments in painterly snapshots, while Rosenwasser's poem fragments narrate their lives as bits of gossip and flirtation.